Articles tagged “hosts”

Interesting new attempt by Airbnb to rethink how people search and discover on its product and likely to finally spur some innovation in travel search and booking.

The vacation rental industry often touts the esprit de corps among industry lifers. Greeted with Booking.com ads for hosts at an Expedia partner conference in Sin City this week, Expedia officials weren't feeling that vibe.

Airbnb at times has seemed to lean more toward the rights of guests than hosts while smaller rival Vrbo has done the opposite, tilting toward hosts at some junctures to the disadvantage of guests. Although a host land grab recruitment slugfest is under way, it makes sense to try to carve out a middle ground.

By the numbers alone — around 4 million hosts — Airbnb hasn't made much progress in host recruitment despite marketing campaigns, easing the onboarding process, and pairing hosts with super host mentors. But there is a pandemic still going on, and Asia-Pacific has largely not rebounded.

Hopper aims to be a big player in short-term rentals, and it's still under development cancel-for-any-reason feature could draw a ton of positive attention from hosts and guests. It could either mean a ton of red ink for Hopper or, if successful, spur competitors to scurry to offer knock-offs.

Short-term rental owners in locked-down countries undoubtably suffered or went out of business in 2021. But for many owners in the U.S., it was the best of times, and their revenue soared. One wakeup call — there may not be an adequate number of listings to meet demand.

Airbnb agreed to take this limited step on behalf of would-be guests who are Oregon residents because of a class-action lawsuit. If Airbnb really wanted to aggressively crush racism, shouldn't it have announced a pilot to do likewise in other parts of the world? Other platforms shouldn't be off the hook either.

We are just asking the question: With all of the disruption in the travel industry over the past 12 months, is it reasonable to believe that the number of hosts on Airbnb hasn't changed an iota?

Airbnb is pledging to make improvements to hosts' tools, some of which the company merely announced because implementation will take several months. Hosts will be looking to see if there is substance beyond public relations exercises.

Airbnb seemed to be disciplined about its marketing spend during the first quarter, and didn't return to the bad old days of 2019 in terms of freewheeling spending. The true test will be this summer when rivals crank up their performance marketing campaigns.