By Nchetachi Chukwuajah
Nigerians in the diaspora, who return home for the Christmas and New Year festive season, popularly called I Just Got Back (IJGB), are boycotting short let apartments for hotels over soaring booking prices.
The Detty December season in Nigeria is often characterised by busy airports, fully booked events, and busy city centres filled with returning diasporans, fun and holiday seekers.
The season offers a huge opportunity for short let apartment owners and other businesses in the hospitality and tourism sector to make huge profits, especially in Lagos, Abuja, Port-Harcourt, and other bubbly cities.
However, IJGBs are opting for hotels over short let apartments, which once offered a home-feel with convenience, space, and affordability, over the surge in booking prices to as much as N700,000 per night.
Taking to various social media platforms, especially X (formerly Twitter), Facebook, and TikTok, Nigerians expressed their displeasure, saying the hike in short let apartments’ booking prices was driven by greed.
They further noted that unlike hotels that sometimes offer free breakfast and dinner, short lets come with exorbitant and an avalanche of charges including cleaning and service charges.
On X, lifestyle creator @Sisi_Yemmie said, “Their greed is too much. I’ve gone to book hotel jejely. I’d rather book five rooms in a hotel than deal with a short let drama.”
Commenting, Big Brother Naija (BBN) star, Leo Da Silva, tweeting @SirLeoBDasilva, wrote, “Nothing is funnier than the prices of VI and Ikoyi Apartments this December.
I know some of you think it will be a sure thing but you see hotels? They will get more bookings this December and you will have to reduce your prices. Over $9000 for 11 nights for a just okay place.”
Another BBNaija star, Nina, tweeted, “THIS IS RIDICULOUS… I paid N4.2 million for 13 nights for an Airbnb in Lekki. Some places have the nerve to charge N700,000 per night. You must be raving mad.”
@TonyAbah01 said several of his friends now refuse to consider Airbnb or any short-term rental after bitter Lagos experiences. This December, all 11 of them are lodged comfortably in hotels.
Reacting, a real estate agent, Jennifer Ike, who has spent the past five years navigating Nigeria’s short let ecosystem, said the market this year is slow and not dead, and experiencing low patronage.
Ike attributed the situation to the state of the economy, rising insecurity across the country, and greed on the part of shortlet managers.
She said: “The shortlet market right now in Nigeria is slow and is not dead. What we are experiencing is a very low demand for short let apartments in December which has never happened in my five years being in the business.
“What I noticed is that there is a lot of pressures on managers, some of them are doing whatever it takes to get an apartment booked, and which is really not their fault if they cannot meet up; as the economy is not helping, the insecurity is not, some of them are personalising it, thinking it is their problem, and investors are not doing their business to help, some of them are even undermining their efforts.
“Aside insecurity, economy, I will blame it on the price, and greedy hosts, the price hike is not justifiable when the reason people book short let apartments is to get value for their money,”
Recall that in 2024, Lagos recorded huge revenue from the “Detty December” period.
According to a report by advisory firm, MO Africa Company Limited, which covered November 19 to December 26, there was a surge in domestic and international visitors, driving substantial earnings across hotels, short let apartments, nightclubs, and resorts.
The report noted that hotels generated the largest share, earning N54 billion ($36 million) from 15,000 bookings in December alone. Short-term apartment rentals contributed N21 billion ($13 million) from nearly 6,000 bookings, despite higher prices and lower demand, with an average nightly rate of N120,000 ($74.7).
Lagos’ top 15 nightclubs garnered a combined N4.32 billion ($2.7 million), averaging N360 million ($224,000) daily, while premium tables cost up to N1.2 million ($746.7) per night.
Beaches and resorts accounted for 70 percent of the N4.5 billion ($2.8 million) earned from recreational services during the festive period.
