Last year, Brian Chesky said that the biggest challenge for the company was thinking like a startup. The need to simplify and focus to survive was spurred by the Pandemic. Hundreds of new features have been put out by Airbnb.
Today, that continues with the latest feature updates from Airbnb. The biggest changes include a new search based on category, the ability to book two listings in one flow for stays over a week and AirCover for guests, which is basicallyAirbnb- provided travel insurance.
The company has two big goals.
The first thing to do is inspire the world to travel. Chesky believes that a new era of travel is about to start. It was hard. By reinventing search, automatically stringing together listings for longer-term travel, and by protecting users under AirCover, Airbnb is opening the door for guests looking to get back out there in a safe way.
Chesky thinks people are ready to dream again. People haven't taken that big trip for the first time. We want people to leave their house and go to this big world.
The health of the business is the second goal. The individual hosts of Airbnb live and die by them. There are small operations with a few properties. Host visibility can be improved by category search and split stays, as they give hosts from all corners of the platform better visibility.
There are categories for Airbnb.
A new way to search by categories is being released by Airbnb. In fact, the home page now just launches into a search for one week, with flexible dates, and shows a scrolling bar at the top ofAirbnb's new categories, rather than the OG search bar that asks "Where are you going?"
A-frames, cabins, castles and tiny homes are just some of the types of homes that are included in the new search.
Since the beginning of the Pandemic, the company has focused on flexibility for guests. The business benefits are clear. If users are searching for the same general tourism destinations, and they have to search by some random hard-and-fast dates, their inventory options will be severely limited.
The flexibility of the search allows for the discovery of locations in hundreds of thousands of cities.
The company first introduced flexible search back in February of 2021, giving users the chance to search by length of stay without setting specific dates.
In May of that year, the company announced it would be adding flexible matching and flexible destinations. Flexible Matching doesn't lock users in to every single search criteria that they choose, but shows Airbnbs that have most of the criteria covered, and Flexible Destinations marked the origin of today's categories announcement, allowing users to search for beach-side properties.
Today's release puts categories front and center.
Airbnb is using a combination of machine learning and manual review to organize listings. For example, listings in the Design category show the architect or the publication in which the property was featured.
The first picture you will see after searching in the pool category is the featured image, which is the pool.
The title and description of the property have become less important, giving individual hosts a better chance at competing on the merits of their property, rather than their marketing prowess.
Category search works with destination search and flexes based on the location. If you're looking for places in France, you'll get a pop up.
TheAirbnb split stays.
The split stays are being introduced by Airbnb. Long-term stays are at an all-time high, more than doubling from two years ago, according to the company's research. If neither of the listings are available for the full two weeks, users can book a split stay on the platform, which will allow them to stay in two different listings.
There are 14 new categories on the platform, as well as for specific destination searches. Guests can book both listings without having to open tabs if theUI shows the distance between the two listings.
Search results that are a week or longer show split stays.
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