Rent the country of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night with Airbnb

http://blog.airbnb.com/rent-anything-from-a-couchto-a-country

by jamesjyu • 15 years ago

193 60 15 years ago

blog.airbnb.com

joejohnson2• 15 years ago

It always strikes me how nice their website is. I really like the design and layout.

joejohnson2• 15 years ago

Liechtenstein is 160 km². That's only $437.5 per square kilometer!

hugh3• 15 years ago

Compare to your average room at your average Holiday Inn Express, which is 25 square metres and rents for $100 a night. That's four million dollars per square km. Liechtenstein is a bargain!

gwern• 15 years ago

April 14th. Hm.

furyg3• 15 years ago

Ahh Liechtenstein. Random trivia: the Swiss once invaded the country by accident and nobody noticed.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/mar/02/markoliver http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/13/opinion/13iht-edstamm.4893...

krolley• 15 years ago

As a foreigner living in Switzerland, it can feel the same. Driving with a Swiss it's like "are we in Liechtenstein yet?" because you'd never know it otherwise.

JoachimSchipper2• 15 years ago

AirBNB sure knows how to pull a nice marketing stunt.

daniel1980fl• 15 years ago

is it only me that "I dont get the idea"... (I was wrong many times before)

JoachimSchipper2• 15 years ago

What exactly is your question? I admit I can't imagine spending $70k/night on entertaining my guests, but Googling for "airbnb liechtenstein" or variations shows that this has already got them a good amount of press, including e.g. TechCrunch. If they're lucky, and good, they may even get mentioned in the trivia section of a big newspaper.

Groxx3• 15 years ago

I doubt you're their target market for renting a country. If you can drop 70k for a night without breaking a sweat, feel free to tell me I'm wrong.

Given this is a partnership with Xnet, and:

>Rent a Village by Xnet partners with these destinations to transform them into highly customized settings for events, corporate retreats, conferences, and more.

I imagine this is more about "events" than a single person renting a country so they can sleep in it for the night. But that, too, is a possibility, if they wanted to just so they could say they did.

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

Are legislative powers included?

schintan• 15 years ago

Should be, otherwise how would that be different from renting a room in Liechtenstein at $70 a night ?

GrandMasterBirt2• 15 years ago

Rich people need ways to show off. Probably get to sleep with the prince or something...?

csomar• 15 years ago

I can see lot of potential for this.

1. The buyer. He benefits from a unique and authentic experience. He amazes his audience because he doesn't just rent a hotel or a room, but a whole location and customize it to fit.

2. The seller. $70K/day, if they get booked 50 times a year that's $3.5 million. The country habitants benefits too from the incoming tourists and currency.

3. AirBnb. It's like having 1,000 clients in one time.

plnewman• 15 years ago

Fun fact: Liechenstein actually voted itself into an absolute monarchy in 2003.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liechtenstein_constitutional_re...

caf• 15 years ago

So when Alexander Lukashenko is described as the "last dictator in Europe", they're forgetting Hans-Adam II.

eru• 15 years ago

He's lovingly pronounced Han-Saddam by the locals.

tudorizer3• 15 years ago

Who's in with me? :D

reso• 15 years ago

I'll pitch $500! Just need 138 more...

GrandMasterBirt2• 15 years ago

I'm in. Now we better be getting our money's worth! Now that I think about it. 1 day for a country for 70k is fine. Means we can throw one fucking helluva party!

citricsquid• 15 years ago

I'm in for $500! 137 more...

(this would be cool, but also hell to arrange haha)

phlux• 15 years ago

Better be for a full 24 hours - none of this 11AM checkout crap.

jcfrei• 15 years ago

I'm in for 500$, Liechtenstein is just around the corner for me.

michaelochurch• 15 years ago

13 days late, bro.

cookiecaper• 15 years ago

cf. http://www.theonion.com/articles/wealthy-swiss-tourist-offer...

1053r• 15 years ago

It must not come with legislative powers, because at $70K per night, that's only $25.55M a year. The GDP of Lichtenstein is 5.05B according to a quick google search (google for "lichetenstein gdp" and you get a result from google public data sources). I'll pay $25.55M for the right to tax the people of Lichtenstein for one year! Even if I only raise taxes 1%, that's a cool $25M profit!

JonnieCache2• 15 years ago

It's not people of Liechtenstein you'd be taxing, it's the many multinationals that send their profits there.

kahawe• 15 years ago

I would assume the number of those has rapidly been dropping since 2008

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Liechtenstein_tax_affair

visava• 15 years ago

collect 700 people using groupon like site and then it is just $100/night.This is an idea for a site if there are more deals like this

InnocentB• 15 years ago

At that point, you may as well stay in a 700-suite hotel for your $100.

estel• 15 years ago

You might as well? Isn't that at least two orders of magnitude less awesome?

Splines• 15 years ago

Warning: Minimum stay: 2 nights.

And no indoor fireplace? Pfft. I'll pass.

alexg0• 15 years ago

Do they kick out all the 34,000 people that live that for the time? What do you actually get?

prawn• 15 years ago

I'd guess: a parade, meeting the mayor, key to city/country, some dedicated accommodation, organisational support in running a major event, etc. Think of it more as a novel way to host a massive launch event or corporate end-of-year party than actually running the country for a day.

takinola• 15 years ago

It's actually a pretty good deal. The country sleeps 500 so that comes to about $140 per night. This is comparable to rates on Kayak for the cheapest 4 star hotels in nearby Zurich.

tectonic• 15 years ago

If those 500+ rooms are all included, that's only about $140 per night. Not free, but one hell of a (hacking) conference destination.

edanm• 15 years ago

Let's get an HN super-meetup going. If everybody pitches in $100 it won't take too many members to rent out Liechtenstein for an all-HN users weekend!

nikcub2• 15 years ago

I call dibs on controlling that army

bobds• 15 years ago

You can't control chaos.

jacques_chester• 15 years ago

It's a "too good to check" story, I'm afraid:

http://clubtroppo.com.au/2010/07/04/rent-a-state/

Or rather, "rent a country!" sounds sexier than "rent a few hotels!"

svag• 15 years ago

The next thing would be to rent the moon, or mars, or any other planet...

nikhilpandit• 15 years ago

Another fun fact related to this story: Snoop Dogg tried to rent Liechtenstein in the past, but was not able to. (source: http://www.theatlanticwire.com/entertainment/2010/07/snoop-d...)

He should try using AirBnB next time!

delackner• 15 years ago

Somehow this feels like the uncanny valley of human reality. Along the lines of renting a family for the afternoon, or a puppy for a walk, only on a massive scale.

I once had a dream that I was the king of the city, and they marched in parade to honor my name. No wait, that was last weekend in Leichtenstein at SuperBlingFest2012.

tudorizer3• 15 years ago

Wouldn't it be cool to rent this in the name of Hacker News for 2-3 days? With 150 people, it's not that expensive.

presidentender• 15 years ago

...Just how far does this rental extend? Can I declare war? 'Cuz this kid from high school still owes me $50.

krmmalik• 15 years ago

I wonder if Richard Branson will be listing his Necker Islands anytime soon ;-)

lasonrisa• 15 years ago

Double the regular price and say that all proceeds would to his Virgin Unite charity. You might actually stand a chance.

joubert2• 15 years ago

I clicked on "Book Now".

Next I was prompted to contact the "host" to confirm availability (does this mean they kick out the citizens?)

Oh, and BTW, minimum stay is 2 nights, so this will cost me $140,000.

cosmicray• 15 years ago

> does this mean they kick out the citizens?

It means that the citizens will now try to book a group-rate 2-day stay on Ibiza, then return to clean things up before the next renter arrives.

joubert2• 15 years ago

One should set up a Kickstarter project to raise the $140k required (minimum stay is 2 nights).

Participants can then be one's guests.

jtnt• 15 years ago

I'd rather rent San Marino (a country inside of Italy). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Marino

Rent the country of Liechtenstein for $70,000 a night with Airbnb

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