Airbnb's Event Ambitions Won't Disrupt Meetings Sector

Airbnb's recent acquisition of event space booking service Gaest represents a long-awaited strategic investment by the company in the meetings and events space after toying with the sector through its Experience offerings and a widget aimed at getting event attendees to stay at an Airbnb instead of a hotel. Gaest's small staff in Denmark has joined Airbnb, although the Gaest platform is expected to operate independently of the Airbnb brand for the time being. While Airbnb is known for shaking up the traditional hospitality industry, a move into meetings through Gaest won't prove to be disruptive. Adding a small booking site for meeting space makes sense for Airbnb as it grows, and ties into its existing business verticals well, but the event sector at large is in need of a wider evolution of the planning and marketing process. So why Gaest? The company's business model is similar to Airbnb's; hosts, or in this case venues, sign up for the platform and consumers, or businesses, book meeting space. Unlike Breather or Convene, which actually own the real estate they sell access to, Gaest is a platform for event space listings like Airbnb is a platform for homestay listings. During an interview with Gaest CEO Anders Boelskifte Mogensen in April 2018, much of the discussion was about riding the line between becoming a platform oriented towards corporate hotel space bookings and getting cool, interesting venues and restaurants on the platform as a differentiator. Mogensen is now, after the acquisition, Airbnb's lead for meetings and events in