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After years of trying, Airbnb to formally launch Experiences service
Airbnb is likely to go mainstream in the next few weeks on its attempts to expand the product into new areas: namely activities and things to do.
The company has recently sent an email to hosts in which it encourages them to “be one of the first experience hosts”, launching it appears initially in San Francisco in the first week of December.
“Whether it’s an intimate dinner at your house, a rosé brunch in the park, dinner and a bonfire at the beach, or a serendipitous excursion to your favorite pop-up in the Mission, every idea you share is a chance for a traveler to belong in San Francisco.”
A sign-up page allows hosts to “earn extra money showing travellers your favourite local sights or hosting an activity with your friends”.
Essentially this is the formalisation of a hosts-as-guides service on the site.
Whilst the news that Experiences is going live is likely to get hosts and the press excited (“genius move”, says Jack Smith on ProductHunt), Airbnb has actually been testing this type of service on and off for quite some time.
The first signs that the home-sharing site wanted to expand what it hosts are able to offer came in May 2013, when some started selling products such as boat trips and other local activities.
This followed the launch in late-2012 of its Neighbourhoods pages, where hosts could recommend things to do in particular area, such as cafes, museums, and other activities.
An even earlier partnership with Vayable to up-sell experiences to users of Airbnb on confirmation emails ended reasonably quickly after its launch in 2011.
The most recent iteration of its testing the activities and experience waters came in May 2014 when pages appeared with guides selling products such as mountain bike tours in San Francisco.
Again, Airbnb played it all down said the idea was it simply “experimenting with new ways to create meaningful experiences” and wouldn’t share any more details.
The latest attempt could be another “experiment”, but there is plenty of product already lined up, providing things as diverse as surfing, hiking, city walks and shopping tours.
About the Writer :: Kevin May
Kevin is senior editor and a co-founder at Tnooz. He was previously editor of UK-based magazine Travolution and web editor of Media Week UK from 2003 to 2005.
He has worked in regional newspapers (Essex Enquirer) and started his career at the Police Gazette at New Scotland Yard in London. He has a degree in criminology, a postgraduate diploma in magazine journalism and publishes his first book - a biography about Depeche Mode - in 2017.
Valentin Dombrovsky
Being part of t&a market for some time, I personally see bigger news in Booking.com – Getyourguide partnership that is being tested at the moment.
(Sorry, Airbnb, but it doesn’t seem to me that you’re doing it right)
Kirill Khromov
The title sounds impressive but much easier to say rather than to perform well. What we see, that on the market of Tours & Activities dealing with the private guides is much tougher process comparing with tour operators that are more reliable and responsible from all points of view. Taking into account our average shopping basket we can claim that either the offers from tour operators are much easier to sell.
Moreover don’t forget about the last trends like instant booking service, that obviously require real-time availability from the supplier – that is hard to imagine while working with non-professional guides. Of course, all these issues are solvable, but it’s a question of time and huge resources. Depends on Airbnb and what they want, cause for easy upselling they can use the affiliate partners programs from different T&A aggregators, otherwise they’re entering a completely different market with sustainable players and competitive budgets.
Henry Harteveldt
I used Airbnb to rent an apartment in Paris over the summer. Roughly a week before my trip, I received an email from Airbnb offering up various activities conducted by local guides — everything form walking tours of neighborhoods to cooking and French lessons. None of these were inexpensive, BTW — some events cost more than $150 p.p.
There’s still an issue of whether the individual is truly well-qualified to provide the service. Based on the inaccuracies in property descriptions, which our research has identified as a key source of traveler complaints with vacation rental/home-sharing services, Airbnb should screen/verify these guides as qualified in their field(s) to increase consumer confidence and willingness to purchase. As Robert noted, Airbnb has 350,000 entrepreneurial hosts. That doesn’t make them good guides or teachers, it merely means they are eager to earn money.
Kevin May
@henry – yes, Airbnb appears to have quite a few these marketing deals around the world (like the one it had with Vayable way back when)… Trip4Real in Barcelona, for example, which is apparently rather successful for the partner.
Bruce Rosard
@Henry – your points are very well taken, but who’s to say that Airbnb doesn’t go beyond P2P and begin to offer experiences provided from the typical T&A providers who will be chomping at the bit to work with them? If I was an activities supplier that gets a lot of business from aggregators like Viator and Expedia, a direct relationship with hosts in my local area would a great new channel. Or don’t you think that Viator/Expedia and Airbnb are likely already in conversation?
Valentin Dombrovsky
Your point is right, Bruce. I wonder, however, why Airbnb is so persistent in trying to turn hosts to t&a suppliers while it’s obvious that new source of monetization lies somewhere in offering skip the line tickets for Eiffel tower when the traveller goes to Paris, for example.
RobertKCole
This is a very big deal. Never underestimate a company with a $25 billion market cap and a reputation for disruption. Barriers to entry are high for any competitor desiring to compete at scale with Airbnb’s expansive network of 350,000 entrepreneurial hosts, all with a vested interest in creating great experiences and earning top ratings.
Expect Airbnb not to simply focus on travelers, as this service scales extremely well for locals as well – Gaining access to experiences that are normally only available to locals is one thing, but the real value is created by creating experiences that are only available through that particular host, provides an entirely different dimension.
Before Chip Conley departed Joie de Vivre, their website featured the expertise of the hotel staff in helping guests explore their neighborhoods. This isn’t just an experiment, this is a strategy. One that helps grow share of wallet, increase engagement and produce unique, memorable experiences.
Creating a solid revenue share from a product with no labor or cost of goods is a very good business, especially when it produces incremental income for hosts and largely solves the obstacle of marketing to a large pool of potential customers…
Kevin May
@rob – completely agree re strategy, rather than experimentation – it’s been doing the latter for years…
what makes this interesting, as with everything Airbnb does, is the lack of regulatory supervision over the “owners” of product… many consumers would normally expect the owner of, say, a sailing boat operating from Fisherman’s Wharf that takes them on a city-registered cruise of SF Bay to have some kind of insurance or training for in the event of an accident. What kind of oversight will there be for an Airbnb host who happens to be able to do the same for guests by simply make use of his or her parents’ boat? Perhaps the risk will once again be put in the hands of the consumer of the product, rather than as a responsibility of the organisation that facilitates the “agreement” (like Airbnb).
RobertKCole
My theory (after moderating a panel at a conference on the topic with a Los Angeles Councilman) follows:
The end game is that individuals will need to –
1) Register as providers with the city (LA is making Uber/Lyft do this to enable pickups at LAX – the drivers don’t mind at all.)
2) Pay city taxes on the revenue earned (probably automatically remitted by selling website)
3) A minimum level of insurance coverage will be mandatory.
4) Service providers must abide by all jurisdictional laws.
5) Depending on the activity, the individual may need third party certification or authorization to perform the service (If they are taking you skydiving, they better have a pilot’s license and credentials from the relevant governing body (in the US, a Class C license from the US Parachute Association.)
The only tricky parts are #4 & $5. The outcome will be somewhere between “we have no liability, we are just a sales agent” and having liability coverage for any individuals that mislead patrons into unsafe or illegal circumstances. I cannot see a group like Airbnb being held responsible for guaranteeing the well being of each guest any more than a travel agent or wholesaler would.
That said, I have seen a travel wholesaler successfully sued for $1 million USD for only booking the flight and hotel for a family trip to Mexico, where the father got drunk at a neighboring hotel, joined a snorkeling tour (without paying) and sadly drowned. The plaintiff could not go after the snorkel instructor, or the local hotel, so they found the largest related party they could identify – the tour operator. A sympathetic jury was convinced that someone needed to pay up take care of the deceased man’s wife and four small children… Airbnb will fight hard to avoid that level of liability.
The rating/trust system will take care of the poor service issues, but vetting the licensing and insurance issues will likely fall upon Airbnb – on Los Angeles, the agreement supporting Uber & Lyft to service LAX requires the selling agent to inspect vehicles and to verify licensing and insurance. In the case of activities, Airbnb will have a more costly and time consuming task doing that for certain activities – like boating, skydiving, etc.
Still, when someone inevitably gets food poisoning, slips and falls, or gets separated in a crowd and mugged, it is just going to be an insurance issue, with Airbnb pushing as much coverage and responsibility as possible down to the individual host’s policy (which I assume, will often be sold by Airbnb to the hosts.)
I would think transparency regarding insurance coverage would help legitimize the service platform and help Airbnb avoid liability.
Ryo Uchinomiya
Hello, Kevin -san from Tokyo!
Tokyo is now expecting 2020 Olympics. In-bound traveler fever is now increasing and Airbnb initiated their service in this city. Well. it sounds really up-to-date to me, but we got problems.
Some people provide their rooms without consent of their landlord. This means people not on the list are staying at rooms, throwing garbage, and falling from balcony. >> http://ajw.asahi.com/article/behind_news/social_affairs/AJ201511100005
I suppose presence of Airbnb is getting bigger in Japan, but we sometimes see this kind of facts, which Airbnb did not expected.
Jose
… Airbnb’s “self employed guides” shall be same threat to oficial local tourist guides as Uber is to taxis… taking their business.