Looking at Hospitality Holistically
by Carole VanSickle Ellis
When Sean Breuner was a kid, some of the best times of the year involved his entire extended family going on vacation together. “We would travel and stay in nice three- or four-star hotels, and I remember all of us staying in different rooms, getting lost, trying to coordinate meeting up for dinner, and not really having the privacy that we all like and it being really expensive,” he recalled. “We were not waking up in the morning and cooking breakfast together or really getting that intimate family experience, and sometimes that made it really stressful,” Breuner added.
Years later, recalling those experiences would lead Breuner to found AvantStay, a tech-forward hospitality and short-term rental platform designed around his “hotel-in-a-home” concept that combines the short-term vacation rental format with luxury amenities, professional management, and what the company refers to as “experiential technology” to vacation rentals catering to groups ranging in size from one to dozens of people.
AvantStay leverages its Butler app, a layer of concierge technology directly involved in the stay experience for guests and property management, to handle what Breuner calls “value-added services” typically not seen in short-term rentals. For example, the app can help guests keep refrigerators stocked, coordinate mid-stay cleans with times when the group will be out of the residence, and even book a professional chef. Breuner emphasized these services are in addition to “the baseline basics” like “incredible cleanliness,” “fast wi-fi, televisions, games, a pool, a hot tub,” and, in some markets, a pickleball court.
“Every property is essentially its own business,” Breuner explained. “We look at every property as if it is an individual, mini-hotel in its market and ask ourselves, ‘Who is this home for?’ and ‘Why would someone choose it?’ We are constantly focused on making every property the best version of itself, and that means investing in the amenities that will boost ROI in that market.”
In some cases, Breuner said, this type of investment might mean the installation of a putting green, a putt-putt course, a bocce ball court, a hot tub, or a pickleball court. In other cases, AvantStay’s team will help clients reposition properties to appeal to different types of customers that are more likely to pay premium prices to stay in that property.
“We are always analyzing guest reviews, booking patterns, market trends, competitive sets, pricing behaviors, seasonality, and traveler preferences as they evolve,” Breuner said. “The optimization of a property combined with those insights to help with decisions about design, operation, and marketing is very powerful.” He continued, “We built AvantStay to make property owners more money, and great management companies are in the business of unlocking demand instead of just changing seats and handling maintenance requests.”
Making Properties Stand Out
When AvantStay brings on a new property, there are a number of items to consider in order to make it as marketable and profitable as possible, Breuner said. These elements became critical parts of the AvantStay technology platform. “The front is our booking platform, where you can find stays, split payments, and book concierge services,” he explained. “It is a booking platform featuring high-resolution photos and videos, lifestyle videos, and staging of both the brand and the amenities customized to that property.”
Further inside the experience, guests can access AvantStay’s Butler app, a concierge and amenities app that coordinates access to all of the amenities and value-added services available in a property. Breuner noted that all properties offer a standard set of premier amenities, such as those that would be available in a luxury hotel, and some properties offer additional, customized experiences, such as transportation to local events and venues or experiences and outings for guests to enjoy.
For example, AvantStay properties in the Coachella Valley offer a “golf-cart experience” that transports guests directly to the Coachella Festival from their residences, and properties that are farther from the location offer other types of transportation so guests do not have to worry about getting a ride-share service to take them.
“We think deeply about how to optimize for a great experience, and that enables us to charge more than the average operator because of the premium services we bring to events and special weekends,” Breuner said. He added, “We run data to determine what types of investments in specific properties will get us the best return on investment (ROI). For example, in Coachella Valley, pickleball courts are now the highest ROI in that area. They are not cheap, but installing one can drive as much as $100,000 of additional revenue on a property.”
He added that when AvantStay opened in Coachella Valley, the top amenities were swimming pools, hot tubs, and putting greens. Today, those items are “baseline,” Breuner said, so a pickleball court makes the property stand out.
The company also has forged creative partnerships with other business entities, such as premier concert-and music festival-promoter Goldenvoice, to further enhance guest stays during events like Coachella. “We have a brand that is very prevalent in the region and similar brand standards to the operators of the festival,” Breuner explained. “If anyone brings on a property with AvantStay, they will get full access to all of the technology platforms, amenities, services, and branding we leverage for all of our properties.”
On the back end at AvantStay, clients can access the AvantStay property management suite, called Voyage, which includes revenue management, marketing, property management systems, operating systems, and data infrastructure. Voyage also helps manage in-field operations, Breuner said, and keep every property up to the AvantStay standard. For example, when a cleaning service has completed service on a home, they take photos that are immediately and automatically compared to the online listing photos. If the two photos are not a perfect match, service is not considered complete. This side of the platform also runs quality control, IOT monitoring, utility monitoring, security monitoring, and regulation and policies.
AvantStay leverages the data collected through this platform and analysis of this data to continuously innovate and improve its management practices. In the event that local trends change and might affect a property’s pet policies or other types of codes or regulations, the company is equipped to not only make recommendations, but also to implement changes.
“That is how we build a truly competitive advantage,” Breuner said. “We are a true value proposition because we are thinking deeply about how to optimize your property for the highest revenue from both an analog and a digital experience — the analog experience being the in-home experience and the digital experience being all the digital services and amenities we can offer.”
Willing To Do Incredibly Hard Work
When it comes to the difficulty of succeeding in the hospitality sector, Breuner and his company are under no illusions about the determination needed to succeed.
“Hospitality is incredibly hard work, and we know you have to be absolutely in love with travel and hospitality to get involved with and succeed in this space,” Breuner said. He added, “There are no shortcuts. If you take shortcuts in hospitality, people will notice, and you will ultimately fail. We prioritize doing things the right up, upfront.”
Part of doing things the right way, upfront, with AvantStay includes agreeing to exclusive management with the company. Unlike other short-term rental platforms, upon which many AvantStay listings appear, AvantStay, itself, requires owners to agree to exclusive property management by the company in order to maintain consistency in brand and experience.
“Without exclusivity, you can lose the trust the consumer places with you that they will have a consistently positive experience and level of service,” Breuner explained. AvantStay clients benefit from the platform, social media distribution, marketing, property and performance analysis, and professional management, he noted.
When asked why enter such a difficult sector of the industry, Breuner responds with passion and pragmatism. “If you get into the travel and hospitality space, you build because you want to be there forever,” he said, noting this makes AvantStay somewhat unique among tech startups, which tend to see founders “build and move on.” Breuner, however, wants to remain in hospitality “for perpetuity.”
“We feel like we are just getting started, and that is the beauty of travel and hospitality,” he said. “We could work for another 50 to 100 years and still have new, innovative ideas to roll out. It is a truly differentiated, unique, and special experience to travel and build with the people you love, and that is what keeps us going.”
Furthermore, Breuner sees the hospitality industry as a space that will be resilient to the many looming changes that will affect the national and local economies in the future. “Domestic travel is incredibly resilient,” he said. “If you pick the right markets and the right product and continue to deliver not just a consistent, five-star experience, but a differentiating, unique experience behind a trusted brand, you will do well with domestic travel in any environment.”
Breuner concluded, “It is critically important to look at hospitality from a holistic view, incorporating dozens of variables into how you operate a property. Potential revenue is not a fixed number. Revenue is incredibly dynamic, and the best operators are constantly evaluating how to maximize performance from that asset as market conditions evolve. We are in the business of unlocking demand, and it is all that work that goes in up front that enables us to position each asset to maximize revenue.”
SIDEBAR 1
By the Numbers
65 // Number of markets in which AvantStay currently operates
1 // AvantStay is currently both the largest and the highest-rated luxury vacation rental management company in the United States
23 // AvantStay outperforms comparable luxury vacation rental managers in revenue by 23%
60 // AvantStay’s commercial-grade marketing distributes assets to more than 60 channels (Airbnb, VRBO, Marriott, etc.) as well as its own direct-booking platform
1 // In 2021, AvantStay’s interior design team won “Best Design from Mariott Homes & Villas” for their interior home designs
24/7 // AvantStay dedicated area managers and team members are available 24 hours a day, seven days a week, so that guests are not inconvenienced by homeowner unavailability
4.5 // On average, guests stay 4.5 days in AvantStay properties
6 // The average number of guests per booking
15 // Percentage of vacation-rental searches seeking pet-friendly homes
3 // The top three Butler app requests through AvantStay were fridge stocking, private chefs, and tours and activities
SIDEBAR 2
The Emerging Home-Stay Trend
In December 2025, a survey of more than 2,000 U.S. travelers revealed a trend that many investors and travelers likely would have said they knew about anecdotally already: Roughly two-fifths of the traveling population would prefer to stay in a short-term rental rather than a hotel. Sandy Chen, a professor of hospitality and tourism at Ohio University’s Patton College of Education, observed, “The [hospitality] market has segmented. Today, travelers are less likely to default automatically to a hotel. Instead, they choose based on the purpose of the trip.”
Sean Breuner, founder and CEO of AvantStay, did not need a survey to realize this trend was emerging. In fact, he has been aware of it since 2017, when he founded his company.
“We founded AvantStay with the premise that there were all of these amazing home options out there and no hospitality infrastructure to really bring these homes to life [as short-term rentals],” Breuner said. “We wanted to bring consistent standards, a real, reliable technology layer, and professional operations to the space. Everything you love about a hotel, we wanted to bring into a home to create an elevated guest experience that would also drive higher returns for homeowners. To do that, we focused initially on the guest experience, and we expanded that focus on growth to serve our partners, investors, and property owners, as well.”
Breuner described AvantStay as sitting in “the premium luxury segment of short-term rentals,” and noted that his company strives to bring consistency to an extremely fragmented industry. “There are more than 23,000 short-term rental companies in the United States today, which is great because it is a large industry, but that size also drives inconsistency,” he explained. “We believe the real opportunity is in bringing consistency, a level of professionalism, and an elevated guest experience to our segment to drive higher ROI for property owners and bring that hotel experience that we all love into the home using a powerful layer of technology.”
“Short-term rentals saw a major surge during the pandemic,” observed Chen, adding, “More recently, traditional hotels have seen a strong recovery in urban centers and business travel.” She also noted regulations and rising fees have slowed Airbnb growth in certain markets, “while hotels benefit from brand trust and luxury programs…. Guests know what they are getting.”
Breuner’s niche hotel-in-a-home angle on short-term stays combines the most attractive elements of both sectors, he said. “Our platform is designed for the group ethos so you can communicate directly with the group, the event team, or with the staff. Staying in a home is just better. You wake up as a group, cook together, hang out at the pool together, and the experience is consistently incredible.”
Learn more about AvantStay at AvantStay.com
