Airbnb’s challenge now lies in maintaining personal experiences as it continues bid to reach mainstream
With almost 2 million room listings in 190 countries, Airbnb has grown exponentially since its humble beginnings in a San Francisco living room in 2008. But as the room-letting company continues to disrupt the travel world, its challenge to maintain the personal, local experiences it champions has come to the fore.
In August this year Airbnb saw 1 million people stay in its user listed properties across the world in just one night, proving the strength of its sharing economy model. However, this success comes with the threat of diminishing its raison d'etre – to experience travel like a local in a personal way, according to James McClure general manager UK & Ireland.
“The biggest challenge is how you continue to scale and be able to become more mainstream but whilst keeping the personal-ness and the 100th million customer as happy as your 10th if not more,” he said. “When you’ve got such high growth [you need to] keep up with product growth, the support side and also how we can be there for the community and make that much broader.”
Next month Airbnb is set to hold a ‘Dreamforce-like’ event in Paris for 6,000 of its hosts which will feature a mix of product announcements and guest speakers as well as provide a stage for hosts to connect with others and share experiences.
Interestingly, Airbnb said that one by-product of those using its service is the positive impact it is having on the environment; travellers staying in an Airbnb property use 78 per cent less energy than those staying in a hotel, given the lack of halogen lighting and gym’s pumping out air conditioning, siad McClure. He also said that people are 10-15 per cent more likely to take public transport and utilise “local assests”, which in 2013 led to over £500m worth of economic investment coming out of people staying in Airbnbs.
Despite the company’s growth from fringe movement to mainstream, Airbnb insists that it wants a peaceful co-existance with the established industry.
“Travel is a very big industry and everyone is successful at the moment. Take London; hotel occupancy rates have been rising for the last 15 years and are forecasted to continue to do so. Its about consumer choice and if you think of how you can provide greater experiences for your guests and how you can personalise them I think its just about different companies providing that.
McClure was speaking on stage at the IAB Engage conference in London today (15 October) for which The Drum is media partner.