New York, May 3 (EFE).- As of this summer, the tourist rental company Airbnb will promote, in addition to its traditional offer of apartments or houses, a new offer to rent individual rooms to its users.
Brian Chesky, co-founder and executive director of Airbnb, noted that for this summer of 2023 his company is focusing on promoting this new proposal that will be called “Airbnb Rooms”, and it consists of guests not renting their entire house, but only one room and share common spaces with visitors.
“In the last year inflation has skyrocketed. People are really feeling it. And the cost of travel has increased (…) That is why we believe that affordability is key”, explained Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of the company, at a press conference in New York that he attended accompanied by his mother and of two pet dogs.
Chesky noted as one of the great advantages of the new formula that the average price of a private room on Airbnb is 67 dollars (60.87 euros) per night, and that 80% of these types of rooms will cost less than 100 dollars. the night.
For the 41-year-old businessman, this change is a return to the “soul” and “original idea” of the company, when in 2007, Chesky and Joe Gebbia became the first Airbnb hosts.
So “we started as a cheap alternative to hotels because it was in 2008, during the great recession,” he said, referring to the financial crisis of 2007-2008.
Chesky noted that he had wanted to bring back this aspect of the app for some time, but that plans were put on hold during the pandemic.
“This is the perfect time to do it. People want to save money. People want to meet. They want to have an authentic local experience and the pandemic is finally over,” she stressed.
Chesky noted that almost half of Airbnb’s business is for stays longer than a week, that is, longer than the average hotel duration, and that even a fifth of guests now stay “more than a month.” ”.
To give users more security, the platform is going to launch “passports” in which additional information about the hosts can be easily seen.
Looking ahead to this summer, the platform announced 50 new features and improvements that its users have requested.
For example, now the application will allow users to see the final price from the first click, since many users complained that when booking on the first screen, a much lower price appeared, which goes up until the last screen. , when extra expenses are added to the total, such as cleaning.
“I told our team: We can’t launch new things when people complain (about the old ones) on social media,” Chesky stressed, announcing that for next year he has “new” and “crazy” ideas related to artificial intelligence, but declined to give details.
