Airbnb upgrades booking platform to make it more competitive

New York — Airbnb on Wednesday announced upgrades to its booking platform to make it more competitive with hotels, such as revamping its ratings and reviews pages and highlighting “guest favourites”, or homes with a near-perfect rating.

The San Francisco-based company said that by creating a more reliable experience for travellers it can capture more demand. Consumers are continuing to plan holidays despite the cost of travel being higher than before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Airbnb is pretty big. For as big as we are, almost 10 times as many people stay in hotels,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said in an interview.

The company reported last week that 113.2-million nights and experiences were booked in the third quarter, a 14% year-on-year increase.

It launched “guest favourites”, a collection of 2-million of its
7-million homes that are “most loved”, based on reviews and reliability. They are rated above 4.9 stars on average.

The top reason people stay in hotels is that they know what they are going to get and it is reliable, Chesky said, adding that making Airbnb more tried and true based on reviews would aid growth. The company said about 23% of first-time Airbnb guests book a low-rated home.

Airbnb also redesigned its ratings page to give guests the option to sort through reviews and introduced a new set of new tools for hosts to share more details about their listing. This includes a photo tour, powered by artificial intelligence, that organises photos by room to help guests understand the home’s layout.

The company plans to announce improvements to its customer service in the northern hemisphere summer based on feedback from guest and hosts, Chesky said.

Reuters