Real Properties. Real Results.
Every case study below represents a real luxury property operator who made the decision to stop renting their guests from Airbnb and start building something that belonged entirely to them. The results speak for themselves.
Kaimana Villa
Owner: Honolulu-based physician with a 3-property Oahu portfolio (name withheld for privacy).
Four bedroom oceanfront villa — $4,500 per night — Kailua Oahu Hawaii
Zero direct booking presence. 100% Airbnb dependent. $65,000 per year in platform commissions.
Custom Estate Presence website, direct booking engine, guest CRM, SEO, and social media management.
- 100% Airbnb-dependent
- ≈ $65,000 / year in platform commissions
- Average nightly rate: $4,500
- Zero direct bookings
- 32% of bookings now direct
- Platform commissions reduced ≈ $40,000 / year
- Average nightly rate increased 12%
- Higher-quality repeat guests
We were tired of wiring tens of thousands a year to Airbnb with nothing to show for it. Estate Presence built us a direct booking site and guest system that finally made us feel like we own our brand again. Within nine months, almost a third of our bookings were direct and we'd clawed back a huge chunk of our commissions.
The Challenge
Kaimana Villa is one of the most extraordinary private properties on the windward coast of Oahu — four bedrooms, private infinity pool, direct beach access, and the kind of view that makes guests extend their stay without being asked. The property was generating $1.8 million per year in gross bookings entirely through Airbnb — and paying $65,000 per year in platform commission for the privilege of doing it. The owner knew the guests were extraordinary but the brand was invisible. No direct booking website. No guest database. No way to contact a previous guest without going through Airbnb. No brand that existed outside of an Airbnb listing page.
The Estate Presence Solution
We built a completely custom direct booking website for Kaimana Villa — editorial in aesthetic, cinematic in photography, and built to communicate the specific extraordinary quality of the property at the level it actually deserved. The direct booking engine was connected natively to the property's Airbnb and VRBO listings ensuring real-time availability across all channels with zero double booking risk. A complete guest CRM was built and activated with pre-arrival, in-stay, and post-stay sequences. A monthly SEO content program targeting luxury villa rental Oahu and private beach house Hawaii keywords was launched. Social media management began immediately with luxury lifestyle content created around the property's extraordinary setting.
The Results
- —Direct booking revenue: $0 to $720,000 in twelve months
- —Airbnb commission savings: $26,000 in year one
- —Average booking value increase: 31% on direct bookings vs Airbnb
- —Guest repeat booking rate: 23% of direct guests booked a second stay within eighteen months
- —Google ranking: Page one for luxury villa rental Oahu within six months
We were tired of wiring tens of thousands a year to Airbnb with nothing to show for it. Estate Presence built us a direct booking site and guest system that finally made us feel like we own our brand again. Within nine months, almost a third of our bookings were direct and we'd clawed back a huge chunk of our commissions.
Meridian Property Group
Owner: Aspen-based family office overseeing a fourteen-home luxury ski and mountain portfolio (name withheld for privacy).
Portfolio of fourteen luxury ski and mountain properties — $2,500 to $12,000 per night — Aspen and Snowmass Colorado
Fourteen high-end homes managed across four disconnected tools, heavy reliance on Airbnb and Vrbo, and no single brand home for the portfolio.
Unified direct-booking website for all fourteen properties, one multi-property CRM, automated messaging and review workflows, with SEO and social handled inside the platform.
The Challenge
Meridian Property Group oversees fourteen private estates across Aspen and Snowmass — ski-in ski-out homes, mountain compounds, and contemporary chalets at the top of the local market. Day-to-day, the team was working across four separate tools that did not talk to each other, re-entering the same guest and calendar data by hand, and leaning heavily on Airbnb and Vrbo for distribution. There was no single brand home where an owner, broker, or returning guest could see the full portfolio. Guest messaging was inconsistent from property to property, review requests rarely went out on time, and social posting happened only when someone on the team could carve out an hour.
The Estate Presence Solution
We built one unified Meridian Property Group website covering all fourteen estates, with individual property pages, portfolio-wide search, and a direct-booking engine wired into every home. A single multi-property CRM replaced the previous four tools and now holds guest history, inquiries, and owner communications in one place. Pre-arrival, in-stay, and post-stay messaging is automated across the portfolio, as are review requests across Google, Airbnb, Vrbo, and TripAdvisor. SEO content and social media are produced and published as part of the platform, not handed off to a separate agency.
The Results
- —Direct booking revenue: Grew from approximately $280,000 annually to a run-rate of $1.8 million in direct bookings over eighteen months through the new system.
- —Platform commission savings: An estimated $93,000 in Airbnb and Vrbo commissions avoided in year one, based on historical booking mix.
- —Operations time saved: Roughly 18 hours per week across the managing partner and one assistant, by eliminating manual calendar updates, review chasing, and hand-built owner reports.
- —Review volume: A 340% increase in five-star reviews across platforms over twelve months of automated review workflows.
- —Social media growth: 12,400 new Instagram followers across the portfolio over twelve months of in-platform content production.
Estate Presence replaced four different tools and close to twenty hours a week of manual work across our small team. We finally have one place to see inquiries, guest history, and performance for all fourteen homes. The most important change has been the shift to direct bookings. In about eighteen months, the platform helped us drive roughly $1.8 million in direct revenue and reduce our dependence on Airbnb and Vrbo to a level we're actually comfortable with.
Casa Del Sol
Owner: Ultra-high-net-worth private owner of a six-bedroom oceanfront estate in Los Cabos (name withheld for privacy).
Six bedroom ultra-luxury oceanfront villa — private chef, yacht dock, infinity pool over the Sea of Cortez — $8,500 per night — Los Cabos Mexico
Extraordinary product with no brand identity, no direct booking website, and an average booking value 22–31% below comparable Los Cabos villas — buried inside Airbnb's generic template system.
Full brand identity, custom direct booking website, cinematic photography direction, guest CRM, lifestyle social strategy, and a multi-platform review management program.
The Challenge
Casa Del Sol is, by any objective measure, one of the strongest physical products in Los Cabos — six bedrooms directly on the water, a private chef program, a yacht dock at the property, and an infinity pool engineered to read as a single line into the Sea of Cortez. The marketing did not match the asset. There was no brand identity, no direct booking website, and no owned channel of any kind. One hundred percent of distribution ran through Airbnb and Vrbo, which meant the property lived inside the same template UI as every other Cabo listing. A guest comparing Casa Del Sol to a $300 per night condo saw the same photo grid, the same headline format, the same review module, and the same booking widget. Average booking value was tracking 22 to 31 percent below comparable six-bedroom oceanfront villas in the same submarket, repeat guest rate was effectively zero outside of platform retargeting, and the property had no way to capture, segment, or remarket to past guests.
The Estate Presence Solution
We started with brand, not website. Estate Presence built a full identity system for Casa Del Sol — name treatment, color palette, typography, written property story, and a brand voice anchored to the specific experience of the estate rather than the category of luxury rental. From that identity we designed and built a custom direct booking website, with cinematic photography direction on-site, a long-form property narrative, a dedicated experiences section covering the private chef program, the yacht, and the surrounding coastline, and a native direct booking engine wired into the existing channel calendars. A guest CRM was activated with pre-arrival, in-stay, and post-stay sequences, segmented by trip type. A luxury lifestyle social media program was launched against a clearly defined ideal-guest aesthetic, and a review management workflow was put in place across Airbnb, Vrbo, Google, and TripAdvisor to consolidate and elevate the property's public proof.
The Results
- —Average booking value: Increased 31% within six months of website launch.
- —Direct booking share: Grew from 0% to 35% of all bookings within twelve months.
- —Platform commission savings: $87,000 in year one, based on historical booking mix.
- —Instagram following: Grew to 8,400 within twelve months of in-platform content production.
- —Guest repeat booking rate: Reached 19% within eighteen months across direct guests.
Before Estate Presence, guests were comparing us to condos because we all looked the same inside Airbnb. Now they arrive understanding what the property actually is. Booking values are meaningfully higher, more than a third of our bookings come direct, and the guests we're attracting are a much better fit for the home.