Ep 62: From Mental Health Nurse to 5-Star Superhost with Narelle Beavan

**Ray Yee** (0:00)
Welcome to this week's episode of Superhosts Down Under. This week, we have Narelle on the show. Welcome to the show.

**Narelle Beavan** (0:06)
Thanks, Ray. Hi, Silvia too.

**Silvia** (0:09)
Hi, Narelle. Welcome.

**Ray Yee** (0:12)
Great. And before we get into your story, we're going to talk about our weekly topic. Silvia, what do we have?

**Silvia** (0:20)
Well, I know we discuss reviews a lot. However, I wanted to discuss the fact that some reviews are about the property style, era or theme and not about the quality of the accommodation. And I'll give you an example. I've got a friend host who has an art deco apartment, and it's in the most beautiful building. Everything has been restored. So we're talking a building that's about 100 years old. And I mean, like, there's a high-profile, wealthy people that live there.
You know, it is an upmarket building. But some people just don't understand art deco. They're looking for contemporary, which is fine. There's no criticism there. But it doesn't make sense that you're going to write a review saying that it's old just because it has some original features. And in fact, that should be valued, the original features, especially if they've been restored and it has that old world charm. And she was telling me about this problem and I said, you really need to filter the type of guests that you attract by writing something like, you know, old world charm, original features, all of that. It did improve for her after that, but she still gets people or guests coming through who criticise it because it's not what they're expecting. You know, they're expecting a contemporary look. But I just personally don't understand because if that's, don't you look at the photos, can't you see that that isn't what you're getting? So it's a little bit confusing and a bit disappointing too, because you're being rated on a style or an era that the guest doesn't like and not on the accommodation itself, which seems a bit unjust.
Have either of you had this experience? Ray, you are very stylized with your Scandinavian look, have you?

**Ray Yee** (2:30)
Yeah, yeah.
I do face that because my eight years in Sweden, like it's very, it's very Ikea-esque, like it's very minimal, it's light, it's airy. You don't really have heavy couches and like dark furniture, or like not too many, not too many distractions. So I try to keep a very minimalistic design, including instead of having a big TV in the studio, I have a smart monitor, which like you could also stream things too. So you can like, there's a desk, you can put your keyboard there, connect to your computer, but you can also turn it, there's a remote, and then you can flip through stream TV. And it's 40 square meters. So it's a not so large apartment to begin with. So there's not that much room to sit away from a large TV anyway. So I thought 29 or 32 inches is enough. But I think in some parts of the world, like larger TVs is very popular, like big screen TVs with surround sound and multiple bedrooms. But my unit's in South area, and it's a studio, and it's 40 square meters. Like a 70 inch TV would take up too much space. And then also, it'd be quite uncomfortable to watch in a small space because you'd be sitting too close. But I've had guests complain about the size of the TV. And I've had guests complain about the lack of enough natural light. And I think it's not advertised as super bright, but also in all my photos, the lights are on. Like it's not a, this is what it looks like with the lights off on a sunny day. During the day, this is the unit when it's sunny with the lights on. And so that's really difficult because some have ended with disputes, like where guests want a discount, and then we have to go back to the ad. And then of course, like being clear on the ad, and they end up not being successful in their complaint. But it's still a feeling of sadness when you can't make someone stay pleasurable, like what they wanted. And I think that expectation is difficult when we're open to any guest from around the world, and they all have their cultural backgrounds and what they're used to.
And trying my best to just accommodate people appropriately, but you can't really deal with everyone's situation. So just trying to be clear as much as I can.
What do you think, Narelle?

**Narelle Beavan** (5:18)
It's really interesting you say that, and it'd be good to know, I guess, the demographics of those people that complain.