A night in the Ferrari Museum or a replica of the flying house from “Above”: Airbnb wants to be more than a platform for ordinary accommodation. But initially only a few will experience this.
Airbnb boss Brian Chesky wants to focus the accommodation platform more on exceptional experiences in competition with the hotel industry. The app’s new “Icons” section presents, among other things, overnight stays in the Ferrari Museum and in the floating house from the animated film “Up” recreated by Airbnb – including more than 8,000 balloons above the roof.
Airbnb wants to show that it can do more than just software. At the same time, the service will remain focused on offering accommodation for cheaper trips.
The “Icon” experiences are free or cost less than $100 per night. For now, Airbnb sees this as an investment in the brand, said Chesky. Only relatively few will be able to enjoy it: This year, Airbnb is expected to give away around 4,000 “golden” tickets – literally gold-colored souvenir tickets like in “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”. Chesky compares it to a haute couture collection at a fashion house, which isn’t intended for everyone, but “it sells the dream.” At the same time, his plan is to be able to offer unusual experiences for everyone over time. “Each of the icons sells a little bit of magic,” Chesky said. In a year, Airbnb wants to show more specifically how this can be combined with everyday life.
Of the currently eleven “icons”, a group should first be selected at random from the mass of interested parties. Then Airbnb will decide who gets the contract. Applicants must describe why the experience interests them.
Airbnb dug deep into its pockets for the first “icons”. The bed in the Ferrari Museum in Maranello, Italy, stands in a semicircle of eight Formula 1 racing cars. The house from “Up” is an exact replica right down to the interior design, which was largely handcrafted using original sketches from the animation studio Pixar. Since even thousands of balloons cannot lift an 18-ton house into the air, a crane was purchased that is normally used to erect wind turbines. And the building had to be structurally strengthened to allow it to hang in the air. However, it will only float if there are no guests in it. Airbnb even built two houses: one at the actual “iconic” location in the state of New Mexico and one for the presentation in Los Angeles.
Overnight stay at Ikea and in the Barbie house
Chesky also sees hands-on experiences as a counterweight to digital abundance – especially in a time when AI programs can create all sorts of images. Airbnb had previously offered overnight stays at Ikea, in the last branch of the Blockbuster video rental chain and in a building in Malibu that had been converted into a Barbie house. The latter was also the impetus to make such experiences a permanent category, said Chesky. “The Barbie House generated more interest than our IPO.” A sign was seen there.
As a second innovation for the summer, Airbnb wants to make group travel smoother with new functions. Among other things, all participants on a trip will in future be able to communicate with the host in a shared chat. There are wish lists and the opportunity to vote on accommodations for planning purposes. Until now, organizing trips together had made it unnecessarily difficult for users, Chesky admitted. According to Airbnb, group trips make up a good 80 percent of bookings.
Upswing in the corona pandemic
The platform experienced an upswing during the corona pandemic because many people used the home office time to work from elsewhere. At the same time, Airbnb emphasizes that there is still a lot of room for growth: for every stay arranged via the platform, nine stay in hotels.
Chesky sees the rules for Airbnb in many cities, which, among other things, want to prevent short-term rentals from displacing affordable housing, as constructive. “I want to change everything that displeases the general public,” he assured. So-called overtourism is a problem, especially in Europe – but from his point of view only because too many people travel to the same places at the same time. Airbnb is trying to direct tourist flows to different places with different categories.
Source: Stern
