Airbnb Wants You to Come Back, Try its Services and Experiences

Airbnb apartment lounge

Airbnb experienced a catastrophe in 2022, an event that internet-goers dubbed the “Airbnbust”. The popular site for overnight stays saw a precipitous decline in bookings almost overnight, something social media users blamed on the hosts themselves.

The popularity of short-term renting had grown so that there were just too many options on the market and cities began resisting Airbnb’s rise to protect their tourism industry. Worse, users felt exploited by renters’ excessive demands.

A post on Twitter complained about how their $1,584 booking grew to $2,252 at the checkout, bloated by cleaning fees, service fees and occupancy taxes. “Please feed the neighbour’s cat before depositing your key”, another joked.

Several years later, Airbnb seeks to reintegrate itself into the travel industry with two new offerings: Airbnb Services and Airbnb Experiences.

Promotions

One thing is common to most customer-facing industries – promotions. A combination of transport, accommodation, sightseeing, eating and drinking means that most vacations are less expensive than the sum of their parts. Put another way, offers make the world go around in the travel sector, epitomised by the scale of comparison sites like TravelSupermarket.

The type and quality of deals vary. The IHG hotel chain has a “pick your points” offer running until the end of August, for example. It’s a riff on a loyalty scheme, helping with customer retention.

Getting people through the door first is arguably the more difficult task, and this is where welcome offers become relevant. London’s Hippodrome in Leicester Square gives a £100 casino welcome bonus to new online customers. Players can redeem some offers at the land-based casino or play with live dealers via the website.

Hippodrome stressed that regular offers are the reason “so many return” to play on its website. It mentions a month-long leaderboard to keep people interested.

Bakery

Image by Tran from Pexels

Airbnb users benefit from affiliate schemes and coupons, with Glamour magazine listing a credit referral offer among various money-off vouchers. It sounded like Airbnb wanted to lean more heavily on this strategy before everything went sideways.

The site had embraced a promotions feature that let hosts add length-of-stay discounts, early bird discounts and last-minute discounts. As we’ll see, this offering is distinct from Services and Experiences, as more of a way for users to make their properties more attractive to stayers.

Services and Experiences

After the Airbnbust, the American company went through an identity crisis. This leads us back to 2025 and the news that Airbnb will add two new propositions: Airbnb Services and Airbnb Experiences.

Reporting on the shift in mid-May, the BBC writes that this new side of Airbnb will roll out in 260 cities. Experiences start at less than $50 and include walking tours, visits with animals, hiking and even vegan taxidermy.

Airbnb Services is more of a classifieds page, where travellers can hire photoshoots, private chefs and personal trainers. A third tweak to the format, Originals, serve as VIP Experiences. This all comes with a redesigned smartphone app.

Speculation about why Airbnb has made its about-face from short stays to more traditional hospitality is everywhere. BoutiqueHotelier suggested that the company is trying to “cash in” on the demand for experiences from younger people.

Something to remember

Despite recent struggles, Airbnb still has a significant audience of 200 million users. Talking to the BBC, the director of marketing firm Check-in Asia explained that the requirements of many of these holidaymakers have changed in recent years.

Travellers increasingly seek experiences that are customisable and/or are on the far end of unusual to have something to remember. This no longer means expensive trips to Nepal and Mt. Everest but learning to bake a croissant in an authentic Parisian bakery or meet an alpaca.

The slight concern for Airbnb is that it risks losing its core audience by hinting at a more hotel-like rebrand. Although, given how dramatically its original offering fell apart during the Airbnbust, it might be the best route forward for everybody involved.

Top image by Donald Tong from Pexels

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