DALLAS (AP) — Airbnb is making a renewed push into renting single rooms in a nod to its beginnings and a realization that renting a complete home is simply too costly for a lot of vacationers, particularly youthful ones.
The short-term rental firm rolled out a brand new providing Wednesday that it calls Airbnb Rooms. Company can lease a room in the identical home or residence as their host at costs that Airbnb says will common $67 an evening.
“It’s an admission that vacationers care extra about affordability than they did a yr 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 shoppers can type listings to study particulars together with whether or not their bed room door locks and the lavatory is non-public or shared.
It’s a throwback to the unique idea that Chesky and Joe Gebbia — now chairman of Airbnb — had in 2007, once they took visitors of their San Francisco residence to assist pay the lease. Since then, Airbnb listings have shifted towards complete homes, and costs have soared, to a median every day charge of $153 late final yr.
“That is going to be particularly in style for the subsequent era of vacationers,” Chesky mentioned of the brand new providing. “The common Gen Z traveler needs to pay lower than $100 an evening.” (Era Z is normally outlined as folks born between roughly the mid-Nineties and 2010.)
It’s an attention-grabbing gambit. Throughout the pandemic, Airbnb took enterprise from lodges as a result of vacationers needed leases the place they may keep away from contact with strangers. Rival Vrbo, owned by Expedia, continues to be operating ads bragging that it solely rents complete homes.
Airbnb made $1.9 billion final yr — the primary full-year revenue in its historical past — on greater bookings and income. Analysts count on the San Francisco firm to be much more worthwhile this yr.
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 offer figures when requested if charges have dropped.
And social media posts about lengthy checkout directions went viral. Some hosts requested visitors to carry out duties equivalent to taking out the trash and laundering the sheets — though the visitors had been paying a hefty cleansing payment.
Airbnb mentioned it is going to let shoppers see checkout lists earlier than they guide. Additionally it is tweaking the internet hosting facet of the appliance to nudge homeowners towards including chores that would result in poor opinions and get them booted off the platform.
“In six months to a yr, there ought to be a fabric discount in onerous checkout duties,” Chesky mentioned. “This could hopefully not be a meme anymore.”
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