Here's wishing you all a restful, fun and safe holiday season. We are thankful and honored to have hosted everyone who's stayed with us in our family homes over the years!
You may already know that we have an email agreement so you don’t have to pay booking fees on Airbnb or VRBO/HomeAway/Expedia. We’d like to welcome you back with $25 off the next time you stay with us. And if you pass this on and your friends or family visit, we’ll offer them $25 off and send you a $25 gift card to an online store you like to shop at.
At the same time, I’m afraid I have some disappointing news to share: In 2020, Pacific Grove will be bringing in a law making it illegal for you to not rent from a hotel when visiting our city. That's right – they want to force visitors to stay in hotels...and pay the high rates hotels charge. Not surprisingly, this campaign was funded by our local hotels, and it takes away the legal right for homeowners to rent to you for the weekend, which has been a permitted city program that generates millions in taxes for our small town's budget. This ban was also supported by our Chamber of Commerce, which acts on behalf of the restaurants, shops and activity-providers.
These are dark times for Pacific Grove and neighboring towns like Monterey and Carmel, which have also been trying to stop homeowners from renting to visitors – all to help hotels charge the highest rates possible. It’s been gut-wrenching for us to see this play out despite us sharing how much visitors like you support and love Pacific Grove.
I’ve worked for years with a group of hosts who believe strongly in sharing our homes for far less than hotels charge. It saddens us greatly to see this change of tides, but we will overcome. And we have faith that these privileged coastal communities will change this unwelcome trend and open their hearts to visitors again – as we will continue to do.
So please follow my blog, stay in touch and share this message with anyone you know who loves to visit our marine paradise and can’t afford to pay a ransom to hotels when you do. We will always share our home with you, your friends and family and anyone who wishes to visit.
Have an amazing holiday season and new year of travel and discovery! XOXO
~Mel