Sunbury ranked among top growth cities for Airbnb bookings
A suburb on Melbourne’s fringe has transformed into a popular Airbnb destination, beating out several major cities as one of the world’s fastest-growing places for bookings. This is why people are flocking to the area.
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Sunbury has been ranked among the world’s fastest-growing locations for Airbnb stays.
The northwest suburb showed a year-on-year booking increase of 356 per cent between 2018 and 2019, ranking fourth worldwide.
Sunbury beat out Tokyo, Aberdeen, the Chinese city of Xi’an and the entire country of Romania on year-on-year growth.
A glance at Sunbury’s listings show anything from a modest guesthouse from $65 per night, to $149 for a seven-bed farm stay.
Many of the listings mention the fact the suburb is just 15 to 20 minutes drive from Melbourne airport.
Sunbury resident Helen Cannon has seen a steady stream of visitors since she started advertising her home on the site a year ago.
“I’ve got people coming to stay most nights of the month,” she said.
According to Airbnb company data, Sunbury had 210 total listings and the average length of stay was two nights.
A spokeswoman for the company refused to provide actual booking numbers for either year.
Ms Cannon said people had stayed for weddings, parties, extended holidays, business trips and because of its proximity to the airport.
“There are a lot of reasons why people visit Sunbury,” she said.
It’s a great place to come and stay because it’s got a lot of history. We’ve got Rupertswood, we’re the home of the Ashes and the gateway to the Macedon Ranges.”
Business owner and Sunbury StreetLife festival organiser Sharyn Snook said the community hospitality made the suburb a great place to live and visit.
“For me, the focus has always been about the people,” she said.
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“While it’s growing quickly, you can still walk down the street and have people say hi.”
Ms Snook said a strong roster of diverse local events like the Sunbury Show, SunFest and StreetLife offered a range of activities for visitors.
“We have a lot of different community events in Sunbury, and everything has a different focus. They cater to different demographics.”