Airbnb will now tell you how to really 'live' where you vacation
Airbnb wants to be more than a short-term rental booking service, and is doubling down on presenting its hosts as local experts for visitors.
The company on Tuesday unveiled new tools to help travelers "live" in the cities they're visiting, along with a marketing campaign called "Live There" to get the word out.
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"The number one reason people chose to travel on Airbnb is they want to live like a local," said Brian Chesky, Airbnb co-founder and CEO, in a statement. "They don’t want to be tourists stuck in long lines, fighting with the crowds to see the same thing as everyone else."
While we'd argue people's number one reason for choosing Airbnb might often be the price — depending on the city, Airbnb rentals can be half the average price of a hotel — the "Live There" campaign echoes the company's focus in the past year on leveraging the local knowledge of its hosts, while also building on the idea that many travelers do not ever want to be considered "tourists."
"Don't just go there," says one prompt on the app, "Live there."
Living there in the Airbnb sense, of course, does not mean spending hours commuting to a job or worrying about the rankings of elementary schools. It means eating at popular-only-with-locals restaurants and staying in hip neighborhoods not typically frequented by tourists. (Except the ones staying in the Airbnbs.)
"The new app starts a conversation with travelers about their ideal trip."
On the tips side, Airbnb is launching "Guidebooks," which are created by Airbnb hosts and showcase "the very best their neighborhoods have to offer."
And in addition to providing local tips, Airbnb is launching a new search engine to make rental suggestions more personalized.
"When looking for homes, each traveler will see different results based on their unique preferences," the company said in a statement. "The new app starts a conversation with travelers about their ideal trip."
In the past year, Airbnb has done a lot of advertising that experiments with the messaging around what it means to travel in the 21st century. The focus has been on differentiating an Airbnb rental as a somehow realer experience than a hotel. "Live There" is the company's largest brand campaign to date, according to Airbnb.
"Today is the start of an exciting journey to help people not just go somewhere, but truly live there," Chesky said.
Finding a balance between visiting like a tourist and living like a local is probably a better bet, though, unless you're the kind of traveler who enjoys picking up dry cleaning in new cities.
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Topics Airbnb
