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Airbnb’s Visionary Impact on Travel and Hospitality

Airbnb’s Visionary Impact on Travel and Hospitality

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Airbnb’s journey from a small startup to a global giant in the travel industry is nothing short of remarkable. Founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia, and Nathan Blecharczyk, Airbnb began as a solution to a simple problem: the founders couldn’t afford their San Francisco rent. They decided to rent out air mattresses in their apartment to attendees of a local conference, offering breakfast along with a place to stay. This modest idea laid the foundation for what would become a revolutionary platform in the travel industry.

Disrupting Traditional Hospitality

Airbnb’s Visionary Impact on Travel and Hospitality

Image Source: reuters.com

Airbnb’s model was revolutionary in its simplicity. It allowed homeowners to rent out their homes or spare rooms to travelers, providing a unique and often more affordable alternative to traditional hotels. This peer-to-peer system not only created new income opportunities for hosts but also offered travelers a diverse range of accommodations, from treehouses to luxury villas. The platform capitalized on the growing trend of experiential travel, where people sought authentic, local experiences over cookie-cutter hotel stays.

Leveraging Technology for Seamless Experiences

One of the key factors behind Airbnb’s success is its innovative use of technology. The platform’s user-friendly interface makes it easy for hosts to list their properties and for guests to find accommodations that suit their preferences. Airbnb’s review system builds trust within the community, allowing guests to make informed decisions based on the experiences of previous travelers. The integration of secure payment systems and 24/7 customer support further enhances the user experience, making the process of booking and hosting smooth and reliable.

Airbnb’s ability to adapt to changing market dynamics has been crucial to its sustained success. For instance, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the company pivoted by promoting longer stays and “work from home” rentals, catering to those seeking safe and isolated environments away from crowded cities. Additionally, Airbnb has expanded its offerings to include “Experiences,” where hosts can offer unique activities such as guided tours, cooking classes, and cultural workshops, further diversifying the platform’s appeal.

Overcoming Challenges and Criticisms

Despite its success, Airbnb has faced numerous challenges, including regulatory hurdles and criticism regarding its impact on local housing markets. Cities around the world have implemented stricter regulations to address concerns about housing affordability and the impact on local communities. Airbnb has responded by working with governments to comply with regulations and promote responsible hosting practices, ensuring that its growth benefits both hosts and their communities.

Also Read: Zhang Yiming: The Mastermind Behind TikTok

Airbnb’s success story is a testament to the power of innovation and adaptability. By revolutionizing the way people travel and stay, Airbnb has not only disrupted the hospitality industry but also created a global community of travelers and hosts. As the travel industry continues to evolve, Airbnb is well-positioned to lead the way, continually redefining what it means to explore and experience the world.

Nathan Blecharczyk

From Startup to Success: Inspiring Story of Nathan Blecharczyk

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American Entrepreneur Nathan Blecharczyk is the other founding partner and the chief technology officer of Airbnb. It is a personal website where users may look for and post rental properties.

The site provides over 1,500,000 listings in around 34,000 cities in 190 countries around the world. With the assistance of Brian Chesky along with Joe Gebbia, Nathan helped establish the business in 2008, and its main office is located in San Francisco, California.

Nathan Blecharczyk
Image Source: theguardian.com

Before that, he worked as a technical architect, and in 2008, he first encountered the other co-founders. He is currently considered one of the most wealthy and youthful entrepreneurs in America.

Even though Nathan’s actual birthday is unknown, it is believed that he was born sometime in the year 1984.

In 2001, After graduating from Boston Latin Academy, he enrolled at Harvard University to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science. He decided to start a career in this field after becoming a technological architect as a result.

Also Read: Su Hua: Inspiring Journey of Triumph and Achievement

In February 2008, Nathan Blecharczyk became part of the Gebbia and Chesky teams. The following month, in August of that same year, Airbnb officially went live. They eventually began integrating market assets between hotels along with CouchSurfing. Nathan and his colleagues took a plane to New York to speak with customers in order to advertise the service.

In 2009, the website’s material began to focus less on communal spaces and air mattresses and more on a wider range of residences, such as dwellings, houses, castles, private lodgings, dorms, igloos, tree-house structures, and even exclusive islands.

By 2011, the website has processed 1 million reservations since its launch in 2008. It has reserved ten million nights by the year 2012. Nathan made changes to the website’s layout, its logo, and its mobile app in 2014. His business supported the Manor F1 Team in 2015.

Following the platform’s inception, Nathan and his crew have opened Airbnb facilities abroad in Hamburg, Sao Paulo, Barcelona, Paris, London, Milan, Moscow, and Copenhagen. They said in 2012 that they will be focusing more on Thailand as well as Asia, Australia, alongside Indonesia.

Among the handful of services of its sort is Nathan’s Airbnb. He is enveloping the whole globe on his website with a global point of view. One of the wealthiest and youngest billionaires in America.

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Airbnb’s India Business Almost Back To Pre-Covid Levels: Blecharczyk

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According to Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Airbnb, the company’s India business has nearly recovered to pre-epidemic levels, and the recovery has been very strong. Blecharczyk discusses the rebound in travel and tourism, assisting Ukrainians during times of conflict, and transforming the company’s future into an end-to-end travel platform in an interview with ET’s Vinod Mahant.

When do you think the business of Airbnb India will recover to pre-epidemic levels?

His Response: We’re almost done with our 2019 numbers in 2021. So, we’re nearly back to where we were before. In addition, the household position in rural India in the third quarter of 2021 was more than double that of the same period in 2019. During the epidemic, we saw this change in many countries. People are travelling within their own country, particularly in rural areas, to places they have never visited before. Last year, Airbnb guests visited 6,000 new cities and towns that had never been visited by an Airbnb guest before. This will be a fantastic opportunity with the resumption of international travel.

Is Airbnb planning to increase its investment in India?

In Bengaluru, we plan to open a technology hub. We’re ecstatic to be a part of Bengaluru’s tech scene. In the near future, we hope to hire more than 100 high-tech employees. We’ve always wanted to bring our innovative culture to Bengaluru’s ecosystem. This, I believe, will be critical as we serve India. In India, tourism will soon recover, and we look forward to working with local governments across the country. The centre will assist us and our local teams in more effectively localising Airbnb in their respective markets.

Airbnb
Image source: i.guim.co.uk

Various journey and tourism-related platforms are competing to be end-to-end service providers for travellers. What stage of the journey are you on?

It’s something we aspire to, and we were working on a variety of different tasks prior to the pandemic. Now that the pandemic has struck, we must carefully consider what is most important to us. Clearly, the pandemic has struck us hard right now. We saw our income drop by 80% in two weeks and realised we needed to make some sacrifices. We were unable to continue doing what we had been doing previously. And that was after we made the decision to double down on what sets us apart, which is the fact that we now have hosts. We have some unusual people who find themselves providing unique hospitality. Whether it’s by sharing their homes, sharing their experiences, or making recommendations.

Right now, we have 4 million hosts. However, we estimate that we will have tens of millions more. As a result, we believe that this is still an underutilised option that we should pursue. I believe that as we consider the end-to-end platform, we will ensure that we consider how to approach it in a way that capitalises on our differentiators. Everything we do revolves around the needs of the guests.

Do you think the Ukraine-Russia conflict will cause travel plans to be pushed back this summer?

I believe it is too early to tell. All of this happened over the course of a few weeks. No one could have predicted where we are now two weeks ago. So far, this conflict has been limited to a specific geographic area; however, we are seeing the effects of it across the board in terms of fuel prices, refugees, and so on.

However, I believe that one thing we’ve learned from the pandemic is that there is a desire to travel, a need to connect, and a pent-up demand. It will be interesting to see how this plays out in travel.

What we’ve discovered at Airbnb is that you can quickly adapt as shopper behaviour changes. Our platform has inherent adaptability; the fact that we now have houses, not just in cities, but also in rural areas. As a result, we’ll meet demand wherever it arises, even if it’s only in the United States. And we’ve tried to anticipate what customers want right now.

So, in the last year, we’ve launched more than 150 product options based on what customers are looking for right now. We have a feature called a versatile search that allows people to look for and book a place to stay without having to specify specific dates. Since its launch, our flexible date search tool has been used to conduct over 800 million searches. Throughout a period of significant change, we’ve innovated and remained extremely agile, focusing on the needs of our customers. And that will be our strategy moving forward, as we expect the journey to continue to change. We’re going to be extremely aware of it.

Many people from all over the world booked Airbnb apartments in Ukraine during the Ukraine-Russia conflict, with no intention of staying, just to help the Ukrainians. Could you tell us how that idea came to you?

This is the first time we’ve ever witnessed something like this. The people’s goal is to pay directly to those who have been affected by the war in Ukraine. These hosts have not been requested. It is sincere in its desire to assist in the emergence of generosity among guests all over the world. Nearly $ 1.5 million has been donated to the platform in the last 24 hours – a significant sum of money in such a short period of time.

In the meantime, Airbnb has pledged to house 100,000 Ukrainian refugees in the coming months. Essentially, airbnb.org and its donors are contributing funds to help pay for it. In addition, Airbnb hosts are opening their homes to help refugees arriving from Ukraine, some for free and others at a reduced rate.

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Airbnb – ‘Need to Succeed’ Story of Two Roommates.

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The rise of online services has eased down many things for people, from making payments online to buy food and getting new fashion clothes to booking hotels for vacations. Airbnb is a similar online service developed by two designers, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, struggling with finances. Airbnb is an online platform, where people are offered services like renting hotels, lodges, homestays, spare rooms in a house as well as various activities for vacations. The platform has been loved for its simplicity and flexible services and is operational in most tourist destinations across the world.

A Brief Introduction of Airbnb

Airbnb is a 12 years old company founded in San Francisco, California by two designers Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia. Being a millennial product, the service is available on both websites and mobile. The idea behind Airbnb is to make a profit with commissions. People use the Airbnb website or app to rent their property for few days for people who want a comfortable yet cheap stay during their vacations. People rent and book accommodation on Airbnb, and the latter charges a minimal fee from them.

Airbnb
Image Source: designindaba.com

As per 2019 records, around 6000 people are working for the company, and it made an annual revenue of $3.378 billion in 2020. The subsidiary companies of Airbnb include Luxury Retreats, International Inc., Tilt.com, Accomable, Aibiying, Trooly, Inc., Deco Software Inc., Trip4real Experiences, Airbnb UK Limited, and HotelTonight.

The Back story

Airbnb started as AirBed & Breakfast, when two roommates, Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, rented their room with three air mattresses to earn some money in 2007. Nathan Blecharczyk dived in as the third founder of the company in February 2008 and held the position of Chief Technology Officer. To expand their business, the three built a website with the domain airbedandbreakfast.com. The website allowed people to book for quarters having air mattresses along with breakfast service for their stay.

The Industrial Design Conference during the summer of 2008 brought the first customers for the company as these customers were unable to find places to stay. The founders of the company then attended the training sessions at Y Combinator in January 2009 to understand better ‘how to run a startup’. Going to the training at Y Combinator also brought the founders their first big venture funding worth $20,000, which they used to market their website across America. In just two months after their training session, Airbnb had registered 10,000 users. Meanwhile, the name of the company was also changed to Airbnb. The company also moved from only renting the air mattresses to renting rooms, apartments, and even a whole house on their platform.

Airbnb got its next big investor the Sequoia Capital and raised $7.2 million in a Series A round in 2010. The next year, it became the winner of the “app” award. The company started to expand overseas, and in October 2011, it opened its first international office in London, followed by the establishment of offices in Paris, Milan, Moscow, Berlin, Barcelona, etc., in the next few years. In the following years, Airbnb established its European headquarters in Dublin. The company also entered Asia after it opened an office in Singapore in December 2012.

Airbnb
Image Source: adage.com

By 2013, the company had registered around 250,000 properties to its platform. Airbnb revamped the website, mobile app, and the logo of the company in 2014, to make bookings, even more, easier for people. Due to the simple and useful concept of Airbnb, it was growing too fast, raising billions of dollars from the biggest investors in the world, including Andreessen Horowitz, Google Capital, and Technology Crossover Ventures, etc. In 2016, the revenues generated by the company were 80% more than the previous year. The company announced two new features on the platform, Airbnb Plus, which listed the collection of best places service/rating wise, and Beyond by Airbnb, a service that offered luxury vacation rentals. As per the 2019 records, two million people had registered to Airbnb globally.

The CEO: Brian Joseph Chesky

Brian Joseph Chesky is one of the founders and the current CEO of Airbnb. He was born on 29 August 1981 in Niskayuna, New York, U.S. Chesky completed his high school education from Rhode Island School of Design and got a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts in industrial design in 2004. Soon after he got his degree, he moved to San Francisco, where he founded Airbnb with his roommate Joe Gebbia as a result of ongoing financial issues.

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A lodging offering platform, Airbnb has extended its full cancellation policy due to COVID-19

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Coronavirus has become a worldwide crisis. Due to this pandemic, many mega-events are either canceled or postponed, visits are negated, and people are canceling their pre-booked tickets and travels. In the beginning, most of the people were panicked because of the refund complications on their ticket bookings and lodging but now they are relived as the terms are relaxed. Many companies have changed their policies amid coronavirus breakdown. Every sector, every industry, and every human is worried due to coronavirus pandemic. In this situation, Airbnb gave relief to the customers. A lodging offering platform, Airbnb has extended its full cancellation policy keeping this corona pandemic in mind. They have also kept $250 million aside for the hosts who are affected because of these canceled bookings.

Airbnb company’s old policy

Airbnb’s old policy allowed guests to get a full refund if they void their booking within 48 hours of booking their trip, or a 50% refund if they do within seven days. This policy is canceled on Saturday and it is replaced by extenuating circumstances policy.

Who can get a full refund? – New extenuating circumstances policy 

The guests who have booked their stays on Airbnb with the check-in between 14-31st March will get a full refund. This is under Airbnb’s extenuating circumstances policy. With the money that is set aside, Airbnb will ensure that hosts get some of the lost money.

Before this announcement was done, Airbnb expanded its extenuating circumstances policy to refund bookings between the fixed period of 14th March to 31st May. The policy does not talk about the refund terms for hosts though. Some of the Airbnb are upset because the company did not provide any fix financial net to them. As the cancellations are allowed and no new booking is being made, hosts have their calenderer empty. The change in policy has affected the hosts in California, Florida, Kansas, Utah, Michigan and the state of Washington. They have lost thousands of dollars.

Some hosts said that they empathize with the guests as the current situation is not under anyone’s control, but their business and livelihood are at risk. Whereas, some of the hosts are extremely angry and have put the entire blame on Airbnb for the loss of business.

The change is policy is a relief for guests, but the hosts are upset with the company. Airbnb is taking further steps to strengthen the relationship between hosts and them to ensure the unchanged partnership in the future.

Airbnb’s action on hosts’ disappointment

Airbnb is ready to extend help for hosts and the CEO Brian Chesky asks for forgiveness for the chaotic messaging around the policy changes in recent times. He said, “I deeply regret the way we communicated this decision, and I am sorry that we did not consult you — as partners should. We have heard from you and we know we have let you down. You deserve better from us.”

The company has donated $10 million to help its “super hosts” and the ones who’ve been contributing to Airbnb’s tour guide-style practices. Other hosts can apply for $5,000 help from the fund starting from April. The CEO of Airbnb has requested hosts to trust into the company as the trust is the foundation of a partnership.

Airbnb at loss because of travel restrictions

As the entire business of Airbnb depends on travel and tourism, the past few months have been difficult for the company. Because of the restrictions on overall global travel, many small and big companies like Airbnb facing problems with their business, as the countless countries have advised people to stay home and follow the lockdown.

In the US, the guidelines for social distancing have extended until April 30th as the COVID-19 cases are increasing rapidly. As per recent reports, the US has crossed 160000 cases so far and has the highest number in the world. Major population countries like India are under complete lockdown to prevent from getting into community transmission phase.

Bottom line

Not only travel and hotel businesses at risk but also other businesses are facing the impact of coronavirus spread all over the world. In some countries, the situation is gone out of control and some are in the stage of community transmission. Let’s hope this shall pass soon and everything comes back to normal.

Meanwhile, for any information head to WHO’s site to avoid the spread of misinformation.

Airbnb Confirms its Plans to Buy Last-minute Hotel Booking App ‘HotelTonight’

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In January, the Wall Street Journal had reported that Airbnb was planning to acquire the hotel-booking application HotelTonight, but the negotiations for the transaction had “gone cold”. But, on Thursday, the company confirmed in a statement, that it is going to acquire the last-minute hotel booking business HotelTonight.

airbnb
Image Source: abc.net

The HotelTonight is a hotel booking app that allows its users to find and book good and affordable hotels even at the last minute. The app is specially designed to help its partners to sell their unsold rooms, and similarly, it is beneficial for the people, too, who are always on the go or for the ones who are in the need of last-minute arrangements.

This acquisition will help the Airbnb users to easily book hotels for their immediate plans, and they will have the freedom to travel without months-long planning. HotelTonight, currently, is operating in America, Europe and Australia. It also offers great discounts to entice more users. The company was recently valued at $463 million in the private market.

After treehouses and the boutique hotels, this is another progressive step for Airbnb towards growth. Last year, with the introduction to boutique hotels, the company claimed to have gained raised profits, and with the success of the boutique hotels, even the company has doubled the number of those hotels.

Airbnb has not disclosed the terms and the sum of the deal. Also, even after the deal, HotelTonight will operate as a separate entity and will work collaboratively with the Airbnb President Greg Greeley.

“We started HotelTonight because we knew people wanted a better way to book an amazing hotel room on-demand, and we are excited to join forces with Airbnb to bring this service to guests around the world,” Sam Shank, co-founder and CEO of HotelTonight said in a statement. “Together, HotelTonight and Airbnb can give guests more choices and the world’s best boutique and independent hotels a genuine partner to connect them with those guests.

Airbnb has been working on expanding its services and acquiring other hotel booking services in order to grow bigger. Also, the start of the year for Airbnb was with the acquisition of Danish startup Guest. A platform which provides the facility to book venues for meetings and other work-related events.