After the collapse linked to the pandemic, which caused international travelers to fall to less than 400 million people (they were 1.47 billion in 2019), a piece of the world is starting again thanks to vaccination campaigns. So Airbnb launches hundreds of innovations to support the return of tourism: deeply refreshing the platform that over ten years ago had already revolutionized the way of traveling, even if often with some controversy too many. The slogan is “Travel is back”.
He unveiled them in person, from the living room of his house (and where else?) Brian Chesky, the CEO who co-founded this strange creature in San Francisco in 2007 along with Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk. As tradition dictates, starting from a personal experience. The platform update is “the largest ever update, needed to respond to the big changes we face,” explained the 39-year-old from Niskayuna, New York. Saying he is optimistic and, moreover, convinced in the biggest rebound of travel in a century. Also for the overturning of habits, for teleworking and for a significant change in lifestyles.
The boom in flexible, rural and prolonged tourism
An example? Last January Airbnb introduced a feature to expand search dates by one, three or seven days – it has been used over 100 million times. Sign of a great willingness to travel and travel. Especially in places a low urban density (35%), therefore countryside or small towns, and for longer periods: 24% of bookings in the first quarter of the year relate to long-term stays. Rural tourism has seen steady growth on Airbnb over the past five years, going from a 10% slice of nights in 2015 to 22% in 2021.
A focus on Italy explains for example that if the most common type of travel on Airbnb was in pairs or alone to the great cities of art, for the summer 2021 the most booked type of trip will see the center – after more than a year of distancing – groups, family species. The bookings of accommodation that can accommodate from five people upwards have in fact globally increased from 35% in summer 2019 to 54% for that of 2021, in Italy from 33% to 53%. In our country, rural tourism has instead risen from 21% in 2019 to 37% this year.
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by our correspondent ANTONELLO GUERRERA
All the news
Returning to the platform, those unveiled by Chesky are sometimes minimal updates, others more important, which will arrive immediately or much later in the year. They are designed to improve the experience of guests as “hosts”, that is, people who rent rooms, houses or structures of all kinds, from castles to boats, from tree houses to stilts. To understand the power of Airbnb, just think that 50% of the ads published in the first three months of the year, still in full pandemic, received their first booking within four days of publication. Now this process is even faster, it closes in no more than ten steps, and all related aspects (from messaging with travelers to the day to-do list) have been efficiently reorganized. Among other things, it goes from 11 to 42 supported languages.
Those for travelers: flexibility
But the more or less sensitive touches are dozens. News or changes for every smallest aspect of the booking experience, on the one hand, and management of one or more structures. As for travelers, an important group of changes concerns the flexibility. The feature is called “I’m flexible”, I’m flexible, and it works in three ways. It offers different accommodation solutions based on the flexibility of dates, facilities and destinations. In the first case, for example, you can search for a structure for each weekend, week or month in certain specific months, freeing ourselves from the dictatorship of the calendar and providing us with hundreds of proposals according to the criteria set. In the second, the search results also include options just outside the indicated parameters, such as an accommodation that would be ideal for us but perhaps costs just 10 euros more per night: it would be a shame not to evaluate it. In the third we end up in places that we might never have identified by setting the search by the type of accommodation and not by the destination.
Another thirty updates always concern guests: now, among other things, they can have an arrival guide, create their own favorites, use geospecific search filters (appear only if they are relevant to a certain location or season), more details on services (is the fireplace gas or wood?), Airbnb Experiences (but not only) available nearby, filters more complete accessibility and always in the foreground. And again: the new Airbnb offers discounts for families, nine new categories including wagons and dried brick houses, a particular focus on solutions in the middle of nature (from bubble tents to ranches) up to places closest to places of interest, which will enjoy greater visibility.
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What’s new for hosts: making it easier
For those who host, however, life will become easier. In addition to the news already mentioned, anyone who has rented a house can now estimate the expected earnings, offer more easily organized experiences to your guests and those of others, add photos and details more quickly and thanks to artificial intelligence, get help from a series of ad composition suggestions and a large series of help tools, especially for those just starting out. Like the possibility of asking a SuperHost, insights into local trends, advice on how to host better.
Service staff doubled
If both sides have problems, it will now be more and more difficult for those situations that are sometimes complex, sometimes grotesque or dangerous that have occasionally ended up in the news at different latitudes. The service center has been renovated (and now has double the number of dedicated employees), in thirty seconds help can be obtained in many languages and the City Portal is launched, useful for municipal officials to learn more about regulatory and rental policies and the advice is personalized.
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Commitment to Italy
Airbnb finally announced that it will work together with Touring Club Italiano for the enhancement of 252 villages certified with the Orange Flag, the historical recognition of tourist-environmental quality conferred on the municipalities of the Italian hinterland which are distinguished by the level of offer, hospitality and environmental management.
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