Airbnb launched a product suite that allows
hosts to identify as business-ready properties more easily and automatically
and flexibly price their listings based on booking trends. The company unveiled
the tools at its annual Airbnb Open conference this week in Paris.
With the Business Travel Ready tool, hosts
can opt in to the Airbnb for Business program, which has been gaining traction
since the company launched its travel manager tools in July. Business Travel Ready listings have
business-friendly amenities, such as WiFi, a dedicated workspace, an iron, a hair
dryer and clothes hangers. Hosts also must offer 24-hour check-in and guarantee
they won't cancel within seven days of check-in.
Though Airbnb is moving swiftly into the
corporate space, CEOs of some of the major hotel companies think Airbnb simply is
growing the lodging pie and that key clients will stay put. “The world's
hospitality industry is large enough that it can accommodate Airbnb as a major
player, as there are dozens of major players in the world's hotel industry
today,” Starwood interim CEO Adam Aron said in a recent BTN story. “We—not only Starwood but anyone in the industry—will be able to
be a strong competitor even with Airbnb alongside.”
Corporate travel isn’t the only area where Airbnb
is looking more like a hotelier. Its new Smart Pricing tool enables hosts to
set pricing controls and let prices adjust to market demands automatically in
order to stay competitive. Not only have hotels done this for years, they're
becoming more sophisticated at it through revenue management tools. To this point, Airbnb hosts have been
operating somewhat blindly, though outside consulting firms like Airdna have stepped
in with Airbnb-specific market data to fill the pricing-guidance void.
“As a company founded by hosts and led by
hosts, we wanted to ensure that our host community played a key role in
developing the right tools to make them successful,” said Airbnb vice president
of product Joe Zadeh. “Our team has spent countless hours working with hosts
through feedback sessions, research and testing to understand their needs.”
The product suite also includes Host Assist,
which allows for streamlined key exchange and keyless entry, eliminating the
need to schedule a key hand-off, as well as Host Home, which allows hosts to
see information like pending requests and alerts more easily.
This week, Airbnb also released a Community
Compact, in which it pledged to release annual Home Sharing Activity Reports for
key markets with such information as geographic distribution of listings,
average number of days homes are listed and the safety records of listings. The
company also stated it would work with hosts and host cities to ensure the
company is honoring local laws and limiting the impact of short-term rentals on
long-term housing availability in select markets.