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Airbnb CEO interview: No room for anonymity in sharing economy
DigitalIn the wake of Airbnb moving to a Verified ID system to enhance trust between hosts and prospective guests, NBCNews.com’s Ben Popken spoke with Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky about trust and security, and what the new feature means for the evolution of Airbnb. Skift reprints the interview with permission. NBC NEWS: How does anonymity [...]
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Airbnb wants to see your ID: Users will need to confirm real-world identities
Rooms… Going further than any significant consumer tech company has before, the peer-to-peer travel accommodation site, valued at $2.5 billion, wants to combine users’ online and offline identities with a process that includes checking official photo IDs. It’s a gamble. In order to better foster a service where users are on their best behavior and [...]
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San Francisco’s efforts to make Airbnb, FlightCar and the sharing economy legit
DestinationsSan Francisco Mayor Edwin Lee has long been outspoken in his support for new laws that would foster a thriving environment for the emerging sharing economy. How does he describe the laws that restrict the growth and legality of travel startups in the the Valley? “Outdated.” It turns out that other state stakeholders are open to the idea [...]
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Five social travel startups for groups, hunters, and AV geeks
DigitalTravel is inherently a social activity, and startups today are tapping into pre-existing social networks or creating new communities to help travelers before they even step onto a plane or train. It is a game in which the have and have nots of information, land, or couches work together to the benefit of all. This [...]
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Hipmunk CEO talks up Airbnb, Amtrak and generational shift
TransportAdam Goldstein, the 25-year-old co-founder and CEO of travel metasearch company Hipmunk, believes there is a “generational shift” under way in travel. Founded in 2010, Hipmunk is the only U.S. company to show Amtrak results mixed in with flights options, Goldstein says. And, Goldstein notes that Hipmunk also mixes in vacation rentals, Airbnb apartments and [...]
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Airbnb doesn’t pose a big threat to hotel industry: analyst
RoomsEuromonitor expects that both hotels and vacation rental accommodation types will see similar growth, with hotels growing by 20% over the next five years, and rentals growing by 19%. While the success of Airbnb has elevated the profile of the vacation rental market, it is a market that has always existed—its distribution has merely improved [...]
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HomeAway makes its third move in Asia with tie-up to Singapore’s Travelmob
DigitalHaving already buddied up with China’s TuJia and Singapore-based Wego last year, today HomeAway has agreed another Asian tie-up – this time with Travelmob. As regular readers will recall, Travelmob is from Singapore and aims to be Asia’s Airbnb. HomeAway’s Victor Wang – from HQ in Austin, Texas – explains that this is part of [...]
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JumpSeat wants to make private flights cheaper for business travelers
TransportSo the market for private jet startups sure is heating up! So far, we’ve written about BlackJet and Arrow, both of which are seeking to become a kind of “Uber for private flights.” So it probably comes as no surprise that there’s someone out there with a kind of Airbnb, peer-to-peer offering to make private [...]
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Vacation rental startup Dwellable taps FlipKey for U.S. coverage in app revamp
DigitalDwellable is the one of the rising travel startups tackling the vacation rental space; one that differentiated itself early on with an impressive mobile app. One month after the launch of its iPad app last year, Dwellable was named in a list of top ten travel apps by CNN. Now the Seattle startup has completely overhauled its iOS [...]
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HomeAway CEO sees tough short-term rental laws as a “nuisance”
DigitalHomeAway may have initiated the formation of a coalition with Airbnb, TripAdvisor and Flipkey to fight restrictive short-term rental laws, but CEO Brian Sharples thinks municipal crackdowns are “more of a nuisance than a problem” for HomeAway. One reason is that owners and property managers renting their homes through HomeAway are primarily offering second-homes in traditional [...]
