Airbnb's Rethink On Experiences Again: A Strategic Decision or a Step Back?
25.08.2023 - 13:45
/ skift.com
/ Asia Pacific
/ Selene Brophy
Airbnb’s pause in onboarding new experiences has raised questions about its long-term strategy.
As first reported by Skift, what the company has quietly done, in addition to stopping the onboarding of any new experiences, whether from current experiences’ hosts or new ones, is to remove these tours and activities from the Airbnb homepage.
A snap look at Airbnb’s homepage via the Wayback Machine shows that a year ago, in April 2022, travelers could select these tabs, Places to Stay, Experiences and Online Experiences.
In May 2022, Airbnb launched its new categories search that favored stay options, with experiences only searchable after activating an accommodation search.
A look at the homepage in April 2023 shows experiences remain ghosted out of sight, even though Airbnb reactivated Experiences towards the end of September last year — it hasn’t been given the same love and attention as before.
Wayback Machine View of Airbnb Homepage in April 2022
Airbnb Homepage April 2023
The pause on new applications to launch Airbnb experiences is “big news, but not totally unexpected,” said Go City spokesperson Baidi Li, former regional director Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa at Tripadvisor’s Viator. Li said that “despite all the digitization and consolidation in the past years, this vertical is still very fragmented.”
Li pointed to an issue with Airbnb’s approach to experiences. “Experiences supplied by Airbnb hosts are passion projects and it’s never about scaling,” Li said.
She added that it was a “totally sensible decision,” for Airbnb to pause new experiences, noting that to continue to grow a sharing economy product at scale, “Airbnb has to focus on its core business to be able to run faster.”
“I hope in Airbnb’s next chapter, they will be open to take on some mass market products through partnerships. Ultimately both iconic attractions and niche experiences are contributing to the characteristics of a destination, and I hope we can offer that holistic experience to travellers,” said Li.
But a partnerships strategy is the conventional online travel agent approach, which is essentially what Airbnb Experiences has tried to do differently. The tours and activities landscape, while not only fragmented, remains highly competitive.
Asked to comment on the news that Airbnb paused news experiences, tours and activities platform GetYourGuide co-founder and Chief Operating Officer Tao Tao said “experience platforms have their own unique set of challenges for operators, customers, destinations and technology platforms than other travel segments, such as accommodations and flights.”
The implication was that experiences need intense focus to scale.
“There is a clear market need, we’ve experienced