Airbnb’s Chesky Talks Icons, Paid Memberships, and Who Benefits From His Billion-Dollar Payday: Full Interview
Photo Credit: Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky at Skift Global Forum in September 2022. Skift
Skift Take
Airbnb is finally taking a big, expensive swing into the experiences category with its launch of "Icons." The non-traditional accommodations come with a non-traditional business model – they’ll be free or low-cost to guests (but they want you to post them to your socials). And Chesky promises things will only get “crazier.”
Airbnb’s Brian Chesky has entered his next innovation era. He sat down with Skift this week at a product event in Los Angeles for a wide ranging interview on AI, loyalty programs, Airbnb for corporate travelers and his billion-dollar pay package. We also talked about the company’s launch of almost a dozen immersive, experience-based homes that they’re calling ‘Icons.’
The Icons build off the overwhelming success of the Barbie house last year – which Chesky notes got hundreds of millions of impressions on social media and over twice as much attention as the company’s blockbuster IPO.
These houses won’t be a classic revenue generator for Airbnb. They’ll either be free or low cost to guests – and are meant to act as an alternative to advertising.
More importantly, Chesky calls them a “gateway” into the experiences category, something Airbnb has been trying to break into for some time. He stressed Icons isn’t a t
