The Fly Tying Station Strategy

There’s an easy way to win as a host on AirBnB and other STR platforms: create a space that’s designed for a very specific person. The people doing that are building waitlists rather than racing toward the bottom with nightly rate discounts.

This short-term rental we built in upstate NY is the perfect example. We created this for flyfishermen. It’s just feet from one of the famed trout creeks in the Western Catskills, it’s equipped with custom gear storage, and we put a fly tying station in the upstairs loft area.

We didn’t build this to appeal to everyone, and it doesn’t. We built it to appeal to someone who plans their vacation around a river, who has an opinion about tippet weight, and who knows a thing or two about matching hatches.

The audience is small, but every flyfisherman who finds this listing is going to book it. And then book it again for the same week the following year. They’re going to send it to all of their flyfishing friends and share it with members of their clubs. There’s not really any competition for this kind of unit, but the demand is insane.

I’d love to hear how this same “specificity as the asset” strategy is working for other operators. What’s your fly tying station?