Hotels still dominate over short-term rentals when U.S. travelers are deciding where to stay. But several trends show the challenges hotels face — and the growth opportunities for short-term rentals.
Airbnb’s Future: Not Just Short-Term Rentals, Not Just Travel
18.09.2024 - 23:21 / skift.com / Brian Chesky / Justin Dawes
Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, said Wednesday that he hopes to eventually expand beyond just short-term rentals and even travel.
“Why would Airbnb just offer homes? Why couldn’t we offer significantly more things? And that’s the future of this company,” Chesky told Skift CEO Rafat Ali during the 2024 Skift Global Forum in New York City. “We’re going to take the Airbnb model, and we’re going to bring it to a lot of different categories.”
To get there, the company is aiming to consistently launch new lines of business.
“I anticipate, every year, we launch two to three things that could eventually generate a billion dollars a year annually in revenue.”
That doesn’t mean they’re all going be successful, he said, but now is the time to expand.
“We’re entering a new phase of the company,” Chesky said. “We left the phase of perfecting the core.”
Airbnb does product releases twice per year. The winter release, coming this October, will focus on a new business of matching hosts with property managers, he said. The summer release, coming in May 2025, will focus on expanding the Experiences business and “numerous” other things.
One of those future places for expansion will be longer term stays, Chesky said. About 17% of stays are 30 days or longer, a few percentage points over pre-pandemic levels.
“Stays of 30 to 90 days … I think that’s a huge growth opportunity for Airbnb, and I don’t think [online travel agencies] are going to do that,” Chesky said.
Expansions will start with travel, but he believes there’s potential in other areas. “Eventually we do think there’s a path here to be doing more than just travel,” he said.
Airbnb recently began accepting applications from providers of experiences after having paused the program for around a year-and-a half. The company admitted that the product wasn’t strong enough.
The company removed many experiences that did not meet its standards, and Chesky said the business has recovered to pre-pandemic levels.
“What we’re focused on is the next generation of this product,” Chesky said.
Airbnb has been focused on staying local, not particularly mainstream. In Rome, there’s a Handmade pasta with grandma experience rather than the Vatican Museums and Sistine Chapel with Basilica tour that you can book on GetYourGuide.
But there are ticketed experiences coming for some of those major attractions, like the Eiffel Tower — but with a “bit of a twist,” he said.
“I think we’re going to have a unique product. It’s going to be more local, a little more authentic than what you might consider mass tourism activities. But we are absolutely going to cater to people that want to see the iconic landmarks.”
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