DALLAS –
Airbnb is making a renewed push into renting single rooms in a nod to its beginnings and a realization that renting a whole home is just too costly for a lot of travellers, particularly youthful ones.
The short-term rental firm rolled out a brand new providing Wednesday that it calls Airbnb Rooms. Visitors can lease a room in the identical home or condominium as their host at costs that Airbnb says will common US$67 an evening.
“It’s an admission that travellers care extra about affordability than they did a 12 months in the past,” mentioned CEO Brian Chesky.
Airbnb has all the time listed single rooms in homes and flats. The corporate mentioned the brand new providing will give extra biographical details about hosts, and customers can type listings to study particulars together with whether or not their bed room door locks and the lavatory is personal or shared.
It is a throwback to the unique idea that Chesky and Joe Gebbia — now chairman of Airbnb — had in 2007, once they took friends of their San Francisco condominium to assist pay the lease. Since then, Airbnb listings have shifted towards complete homes, and costs have soared, to a median each day price of US$153 late final 12 months.
“That is going to be particularly common for the subsequent era of travellers,” Chesky mentioned of the brand new providing. “The common Gen Z traveller desires to pay lower than US$100 an evening.” (Era Z is normally outlined as individuals born between roughly the mid-Nineties and 2010.)
It is an attention-grabbing gambit. Throughout the pandemic, Airbnb took enterprise from inns as a result of travellers needed leases the place they may keep away from contact with strangers. Rival Vrbo, owned by Expedia, remains to be operating commercials bragging that it solely rents complete homes.
Airbnb made US$1.9 billion final 12 months — the primary full-year revenue in its historical past — on larger bookings and income. Analysts anticipate the San Francisco firm to be much more worthwhile this 12 months.
Airbnb has had its stumbles too. Resistance to excessive cleansing charges led the corporate to vary the way in which costs are displayed in November, which it says will rein in runaway charges. Airbnb declined to supply figures when requested if charges have dropped.
And social media posts about lengthy checkout directions went viral. Some hosts requested friends to carry out duties corresponding to taking out the trash and laundering the sheets — though the friends had been paying a hefty cleansing charge.
Airbnb mentioned it’ll let customers see checkout lists earlier than they guide. It’s also tweaking the internet hosting aspect of the appliance to nudge house owners in opposition to including chores that would result in poor opinions and get them booted off the platform.
“In six months to a 12 months, there needs to be a cloth discount in onerous checkout duties,” Chesky mentioned. “This could hopefully not be a meme anymore.”