Airbnb wants to comb, cooking, massage your back and possibly photograph your honeymoon. All these services, and several more, are part of a new offer of the company to expand even more beyond its roots as a housing corridor.
The company presented the Airbnb services, which includes 10 initial categories, while relating its experience program and introduces a new application design in a media event in Los Angeles on Tuesday. Instead of strongly emphasizing accommodation, the redesigned application more strongly integrates all its offers and encourages more interaction between guests and hosts.
This new approach opens new possibilities for the company and its clients, which could ask for services and experiences from home or on the way. But this step depends on a lot of work behind the scene. The new services menu, which was launched on Tuesday with 10,500 offers, will be offered in 260 cities, and Airbnb promises to protect consumers through careful investigation of those legions of service providers.
Airbnb, born in 2007, grew to challenge the hotel industry and became a giant in the world of hospitality. First he launched his Airbnb experience program in 2016, serving as a pairing between travelers and people who offer their services as specialized tourist guides and teachers. But that effort splashed.
By 2022, many critics in Reddit and elsewhere complained that Airbnb's experiences were not reliable, and the Skift industry website reported that Airbnb had stopped adding new experiences and reduced emphasis on them on their home page. With this relaunch, said the company's representatives, Airbnb aims to focus more closely on distinctive experiences that have been more examined. The company also said that it would include more experiences focused on meeting or spending time with celebrities.
To start, Airbnb would offer around 22,000 experiences in 650 cities in 19 categories. To announce the new movements, the co -founder and executive director of Airbnb, Brian Chesky, summoned hundreds of influential people, podcasters and media in a space of special events in Boyle Heights.
“What would happen if you could Airbnb more than a place to stay?” Chesky asked the audience. “Today we are changing travel again.”
For example, Chesky said: “Now you can book a professional chef to come directly to your home.” The same goes for photographers, personal trainers, massage treatments and spa, hairstyle, makeup and nails. In addition, “you don't need to stay in an Airbnb to reserve these services. You can reserve them in your own city.”
Chesky said he hopes to add thousands of more services in the course of 2025.
In the case of Airbnb experiences, “we have learned a lot about how to improve them,” said Chesky, tacitly recognizing the unequal history of the function. As before, the goal is to give travelers an experience that reaches beyond the usual bus places and stops.
Emphasizing small groups, specific issues, Chesky said that new experiences will fall into five categories: history and culture; food and drink; Nature and outdoors; art and design; and fitness and well -being. He encouraged anyone who is an expert in his city and has something to share to request that he be a host. Airbnb representatives said that the research process, which can take up to two weeks, includes the online scrutiny of the labor history of a host, licenses, education and any prize, together with continuous attention to the reviews of the guests.
The renewed program also includes around 1,000 Airbnb originals, adventures in the company of “the most interesting people in the world.” As examples, Chesky cited a mezcal tasting session in Mexico City with an expert, a class with a ramen teacher in Tokyo, a dance with a K-Pop artist in Seoul and a visit to Notre Dame with an architect who worked in the restoration of the cathedral.
These offers present at least some celebrity options, which include spending a Sunday with the field marshal of the Kansas City bosses, Patrick Mahomes, “learn to launch the perfect spiral” or an intensive encounter in anime called “Become an Otaku sex with Megan Thee Stallion.” Airbnb said those initial celebrities experiences are free, offered as a promotion, with chosen guests of applicants.
