Airbnb is going out of home—but not in its advertising.
The company known for its short-term home rentals is adding two new(ish) bespoke travel services, it announced at its Summer Release event on Tuesday. Fittingly called Experiences and Services, the additional offerings will allow travelers to book entertainment activities hosted by local guides and services like hair appointments and personal chefs before or during their vacations, bringing the Airbnb travel experience a little bit closer to one that might be found at a hotel.
The company also unveiled a new app design, and it will air a new ad spot promoting the new options on streaming, TV, and online, plus 10 social-only films highlighting specific destinations and experiences on TikTok and Instagram.
“Most people, 70% to 80% of people, once they find a booking, the thing that they want to do is look for things to do in a new city,” Hiroki Asai, global head of marketing, told Marketing Brew. “We also know that one of the major reasons why people still choose hotels over Airbnbs is that they feel like they get these services at hotels that they can’t get [at an Airbnb]. So we’re super excited to launch these two new lines of business together.”
Authentically local
Airbnb has long advertised that it can provide a more authentic and local way to experience travel than hotels do, with offerings like Roadmap, and it’s not the first time the company has tried to get in on travel activities. In 2016, Airbnb first introduced Experiences, but rolled it back during the pandemic before reopening the offering again in 2022…and pausing it again in 2023, before quietly starting to accept new Experience hosts in late 2024.
This time around, the company is emphasizing activities led by knowledgeable people in their fields, like learning how to make ramen with a Michelin-rated chef in Tokyo or touring Notre Dame with an architect on its restoration team.
“Experiences, when you think about it, is probably a better representation of the brand than stays, because it connects you with people, connects you with locals, it connects you with other guests,” Asai said.
Experiences, which will roll out to 650 cities around the world to start, was developed after more than a year of research into the defining characteristics of top travel destinations, according to Asai. After working with local curators, artists, and writers, Airbnb searched for hosts who could provide experiences that best conveyed the heart of each place.
“We boiled down each of these destinations into a core set of principles that we think Paris is about, or Tokyo is about, and we use that brief to then go and source, supply the experiences, and source people that really embody that authentic nature of the city,” Asai said.
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Also included in the new Experiences offering is a category called Originals, which boasts that it allows travelers to book one-of-a-kind activities with celebrities and “the world’s most interesting people.” These include playing beach volleyball with Olympian Carol Solberg in Rio de Janeiro, going inside the Short n’ Sweet tour set with Sabrina Carpenter, or learning how to throw a football and eating Kansas City barbecue with Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes.
Partnering with celebs for Originals allows big-time hosts to connect with fans in unconventional ways, Asai said. For lesser-known but still expert talent, a category Airbnb calls Local Icons, that connection can also help benefit their brands.
“If you’re an artist or a writer in New York and are known there, those people also have Experiences on the platform,” Asai said. “It’s another platform for them to actually connect with people in real life.”
On the Services side, Asai said Airbnb is looking to fill a gap in the marketplace by providing a global platform that contains vetted, high-quality service providers, eliminating the need to rely on other search and review platforms.
“If you go to Paris or Tokyo and you want to find a masseuse, good luck,” Asai said. “You’re just going to google it, and gosh knows what you get.”
Found it on the FYP
To market the new offerings, Airbnb is using traditional paid advertising channels, but it’s also paying particular attention to social, where travelers increasingly seek out recommendations and ideas for future travel. According to research from Data Axle, a data-based marketing solutions firm, two-thirds of Gen Z uses platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest to find travel inspo; Airbnb is looking to meet these travelers while they’re still searching from home.
Asai explained the travel process as a journey of four stages: dreaming, planning, booking, and actually traveling. Social media, he said, is prime for the dreaming phase, a time when people are feeling most positive about the travel process.
“More and more, we know that they’re using social at a rate that’s incredibly fast, and I personally think it’ll eclipse traditional search fairly soon,” Asai said. “It’s a visual platform. If you’re dreaming about traveling, why wouldn’t you just start searching?”
To target these potential customers, Airbnb’s social-only short films highlight 10 cities (Florence, Lisbon, London, Los Angeles, Madrid, Mexico City, Miami, Milan, Paris, Rome, São Paulo, Seoul, Tokyo, and Venice), which will populate on TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube when users search the included city names.
These films will show off the Experiences in each location, and will lead directly to search pages on Airbnb with those Experiences available to book.
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