Airbnb Trims Recruiting Staff by 30 Percent

Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, September 14. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

What impact would Airbnb’s diminishing New York City footprint have for hotels? One major hotel operator in the city believes the shortfall will contribute to a significant “tailwind” for hotels in 2024.

Artificial intelligence has been a major discussion in travel over the last year, and that’s why the theme of the Skift Global Forum is Connection in the Age of AI.

September 5 was the first day of New York City’s short-term rental registration rules, but the city’s electronic verification system isn’t operational yet, Skift has learned from three sources familiar with the new process.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Thursday, August 31. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Airbnb was the top-spending travel brand on U.S. national TV during the first 11 months of 2022 at an estimated $86.5 million, but it was merely the ninth most-seen among travel websites, hotels and motels, resorts and theme parks, cruise lines and airlines.

HotelTonight founder and CEO Sam Shank helped build the fastest and easiest to use hotel booking app in the world — initially focused on guests booking last-minute and same-day hotel rooms, sometimes from the local bar — but he hung around Airbnb for three years and eight months after the short-term rental site acquired the business, and Thursday was his last day there.

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, November 8. Here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today.

Among the options that Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky is mulling to remedy what he said is a “huge problem,” namely cleaning fees, is giving hosts the ability to levy “variable” cleaning fees.

Airbnb took several steps to ease the process of onboarding new hosts, increased damage protections, and added a half-dozen new search categories, including trending homes and those adapted for wheelchair access.

Bowing to criticism about surprise fees that potential guests encounter late in the booking process, Airbnb announced Monday that starting next month it will begin displaying the total price of a stay before taxes, but including its own fees and hosts’ cleaning charges, at the very beginning of the search process.

Airbnb thinks it’s unfair that the European Commission is proposing increased data-sharing requirements on short-term rental providers across the zone, but Google seemingly is escaping the clampdown.