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LocalScale launches EcoStay!

An ecostay is any type of overnight accommodation on a working farm or ecovillage. Lodging could look like a guest room in a farmhouse, yurts next to the garden, or a new structure built specifically for guests. Educational ecostays offer interactive opportunities, like feeding animals, collecting eggs, cooking a meal, and or learning about cover cropping.

Ecostays are a diversified revenue opportunity in farming and eco-friendly hosting places. However, hosting ecostay rental units online can be difficult - publishing the listings, setting pricing, getting bookings, synchronizing calendars, accepting online payments, and navigating refunds.

The new LocalScale EcoStay module equips farmers or ecovillages with a simple process for opening their accommodations to guests. EcoStay is integrated with existing vacation rental management sofrware. A partnership with a market-leading booking management platform allows farmers to easily list their rental units with photos, descriptions, pricing, and a booking calendar. EcoStay also seamlessly publishes to other leading global vacation rental platforms Airbnb, VRBO, and Booking.com, and integrates with Stripe for payments.





Booking through EcoStay also means travelers are investing in an ecosystem of regenerative activities and supporting local farmers and ecovillages. Bookers on EcoStay will be rewarded with LocalScale Tokens which can be used within the LocalScale ecosystem.

For farmers and travelers alike, the benefits of ecostays are:

- Additional revenue streams for farmers
- Direct purchases from the farm, shortening the food circuit
- Opportunities for guests to learn about regenerative and organic farming activities
- Deepened appreciation for farming and its role in community resilience and food autonomy

LocalScale believes in boosting community resilience - helping communities resist, absorb, and recover from the impacts of a changing planet. Resilience has many dimensions - social, economic, built infrastructure, ecological - and food autonomy is one of them. The foundation of food autonomy in any bioregion is a thriving farming population which means more farmers and more diversified, stable revenues (read more about this here!).

The success of existing farmstays, local co-ops, farmers' markets, "shop local" campaigns all indicate that a consumerist and traveler shift is in motion. Many people are hungry to establish a relationship with the land on which their food is grown - and with the farmers who grow it.

EcoStay will be a place for reconnecting with our roots.

The LocalScale EcoStay beta version is available now. Contact us to set up your listings.

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