The elegant mansion in the hills overlooking Las Vegas could have been featured on MTV’s “Cribs.” But the highlight of Aubrey Garza’s weekend stay there wasn’t the palatial rooms or the marble fireplace. It was a meeting with Airbnb host: Christina Aguilera.
“It felt like a dream,” Ms. Garza, 26, said. Growing up, her bedroom was decorated with posters of the pop star. Ms. Garza had captured one of the “once-in-a-lifetime” promotional stays that Airbnb has occasionally listed in recent years.
The popular, if rare, listings include not only private celebrity retreats, but also stays in a Barbie mansion modeled after the hit movie and a replica of Shrek’s bog dwelling in the Scottish Highlands.
On Wednesday, Airbnb announced that it is expanding such promotions under a new permanent category called “Icons,” featuring unusual and ambitious partnerships with brands and celebrities.
At a press conference in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Brian Chesky, CEO of Airbnb, unveiled the inaugural slate of Icons listings.
It featured a replica of the houseboat from “Up,” the 2009 Pixar animated film, balloons and all. With the help of a giant crane, the house will hang high in the air above the New Mexico desert.
Asked if the house, which does not appear to be connected to the ground by pipes or wiring, had plumbing and electricity, the company said it was “fully functional”. Asked for details, the company said the home “is connected to a generator and other utilities that will be disconnected and reconnected before and after the flight.”
Other listings include a recreation of the mansion from the cartoon “X-Men ’97,” built to look two-dimensional, and the Minneapolis home where Prince’s character lived in the 1984 film “Purple Rain.”
Only a handful of people managed to stay on Airbnb’s previous fantasy listings, but the company said it expected about 4,000 customers to book a stay on its Icons listings in 2024.
Another 10 ads are expected to go up by the end of the year. Booking periods vary. Dates for the “Up” house are open until mid-September.
With Icons, Airbnb hopes to capitalize on the success of previous listings as promotional tools, ready for Instagram selfies and catchy headlines, Mr. Chesky said. (Yes, we liked it.)
He pointed to the success of Airbnb’s partnership with Mattel last summer, which brought the Malibu DreamHouse to life ahead of the release of the hit movie “Barbie.” The buzz interested other brands.
“I think what they’ve seen is that these past icons have become cultural sensations, literally,” Mr. Chesky said in a telephone interview.
Barbie’s listing got two to three times more press coverage than when Airbnb went public in 2020, Mr. Chesky said. The Shrek Swamp entry has been viewed on the platform more than 200 million times.
As an indication of what guests can expect, the two-night stay Ms. Garza earned by submitting a Las Vegas mansion reservation request (“Hosted by Christina,” according to the listing) earlier this year offers a clue.
Ms. Garza, her older sister and two friends joined Ms. Aguilera over drinks and dinner inside an elaborate mansion with glass walls and high ceilings, an infinity pool with elegant sunbeds, a high balcony with stunning views of the city, with pink-toned furniture suitable for a girls’ weekend getaway. (The lodging was free; all Ms. Garza had to pay for was the flight there.)
For Airbnb, the reward for such listings is staying relevant while generating a reliable flow of positive attention that can help offset the negative press it has faced about hidden costs, hidden cameras and the nuisance effects that may have short-term rental communities.
Sean Hennessy, an associate professor at New York University’s Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, said the Icons initiative appears to be an attempt by Airbnb to “change the narrative” and rekindle the glamor it enjoyed in its early days. when it became extremely popular in a short period of time, offering travelers an alternative to staying in a hotel.
In a telephone interview, Mr. Chesky said: “Most people only open our app once or twice a year, and we have to fight to make sure they think of us every year. So that keeps us cutting edge and culturally relevant.”
Airbnb hopes the project will help international markets as well. One of the entries announced Wednesday is a weeklong residency on a tour bus with Feid, a Colombian reggaeton artist popular in Latin America. Another includes an overnight stay in India hosted by Bollywood star Janhvi Kapoor.
Although Mr. Chesky expects Icon Listings to attract thousands of guests, that number represents a small share of Airbnb 150 million users. Still, he said, the category represents the future of Airbnb.
“So this in itself is not a stand-alone business, but it is more than any marketing push,” he said. “It’s a gateway to making Airbnb more than just a place to stay.”