The company is introducing hotel-like services, along with a new selection of local tours and classes.
For 17 years, Airbnb has taken on the hotel industry, and now, two billion guests later, the company is upping the competition. In an announcement today, Brian Chesky, Airbnb’s chief executive, said the company will offer the kinds of services typically found at hotels, including room service, spa treatments and personal training, all bookable on Airbnb’s redesigned app. Other services could include meals prepared by professional chefs, and salon treatments like hair, nails and makeup.
The company is also reimagining Airbnb Experiences, its service that offers tours and events hosted by experts, to emphasize authentic cultural, culinary, sports and wellness activities run by locals. Initial offerings are available in 100 cities, including a tour of the recently restored Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris with Axelle Ponsonnet, one of the architects who restored the cathedral after it partially burned down in 2019. A ramen-making master class in Tokyo with the chef Saburo Ishigoka and a lucha libre training experience with a professional wrestler in Mexico City are among other new experiences.
“Airbnb is currently used as a noun and a verb, and it means a place to stay,” Mr. Chesky said in a recent interview. “The question we then asked was what if you could Airbnb more than an Airbnb and essentially monetize the biggest asset in your life, which is probably not your home but your time, passion and skill set.”
The company tested the idea when it launched Airbnb Experiences in 2016, but faced issues over quality and reliability.
Mitch Bach, the chief executive and co-founder of Trip School, an independent organization that trains tour guides, said the main issue with the original rollout was that the experience providers, though deeply embedded in their local culture, lacked the professionalism of trained tour guides.
Airbnb “purposefully eschewed tourist attractions, which is the bread and butter of a marketplace like GetYourGuide or Viator,” Mr. Bach said. “I think their bet was that around that brand and the genius of Airbnb’s position in the market, they could organically scale this, but they found very clearly that they couldn’t.”
In the reboot, Airbnb said it is focusing on quality and professionalism, with rigorous, ongoing vetting of tour providers’ “expertise, reputation and authenticity.”