In the years preceding the arrival of rental platforms between individuals, holidaymakers rented rooms from owners who advertised their properties in brochures, catalogs or booked their stays in a more conventional way with tourism professionals: hotels, guest rooms. hosts… Then came the web and Airbnb. Airbnb is a company that makes it easy to book accommodations through its online site. It was founded in 2008 and has since helped millions of travelers around the world find homestays. The founders are Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk and Joe Gebbia, three friends who met while studying at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). They came up with the idea for Airbnb while looking for ways to make ends meet as students at RISD. Today, Airbnb is part of our daily life; it changed the way travelers book vacation rentals from owners around the world. But how did all this happen? How did these three entrepreneurs come up with one of the most successful ideas in modern history? Our concierge in Deauville, offers you a summary of the key elements of the platform's success with landlords and their tenants.
Airbnb is a company that helps travelers book vacation rentals through its online site.
Airbnb is a company that helps travelers book vacation rentals on its online site. any owner can freely create his file and present his accommodation. Whether the property in question is an apartment or a house, whether it is available all or part of the year, access to the platform is intended to be free and accessible. This is indeed one of the key factors of the platform's success: responding to a very specific problem of travelers and owner-lessors by means of a simple, accessible and intuitively set-up service.
A second key factor is the marketing positioning of the brand: Airbnb wishes to highlight the human and warm side of homestay accommodation. From the beginning, the "encounter" has therefore had a central place in the brand's discourse. This is also one of the keys to the success of many multinationals: an innovative and attractive positioning. In this way, Airbnb has not only created a web platform but also, in a way, a fully-fledged way of looking at travel.
The idea came from a class project at university.
The idea came from a class project at university. This was to help people rent their homes while they were away. The idea was to facilitate the rental of their house or apartment by facilitating the creation of advertisements and the connection with potential tenants, as well as by offering quality customer service. If the initial idea turns out to be simple, it was able to expand over the life of the company to today offer real added value by even managing to create a new travel experience for its users.
The founders put quality at the center of their concerns:
As you can imagine, it is in a platform's interest to ensure that the properties listed are of high quality. The founders knew that they had to do everything possible to ensure that the ads on their site were interesting for future tenants and would attract enough attention to ensure a significant number of reservations. To do this and thus "professionalize" the image of the properties on offer, they worked with professional photographers who took photos for each listing and encouraged the hosts to take high quality photos, while giving them advice on the best way to photograph different types of properties.
This simple initiative allowed the platform to better highlight the ads on its site: where many platforms offered images of poor quality because they came from individuals who did not have a sense of aesthetics or the presentation of housing. , Airbnb has been able to raise the level and thus attract the eye of travellers. This concern for quality is of course transmitted in a large part of the platform and its tools to make the offers of seasonal rentals on the platform ever more attractive.
Airbnb provides travelers with information about the neighborhood where their vacation rental is located.
If you are planning a trip to a new place, it is often difficult to know what the neighborhood is like. Airbnb provides information about different neighborhoods and helps you decide where to stay. So you can be sure that your home is in a safe and accessible area for your family or business needs. Evoking the direct surroundings of the rental allows future tenants to better project themselves into their stay. For work or for vacation, a better overview of the surroundings is also an important decision factor that Airbnb has been able to work on to improve the number of reservations on its website.
A messaging system for more conviviality and exchanges at the time of rental:
Airbnb allows you to message the host before booking. This is an interesting feature for travelers, especially if you have questions about your stay, the amenities and specifics of the accommodation or if you want more information about the region where you will be staying.
Airbnb also allows users to read reviews from previous hosts and guests on its website. This helps travelers feel more comfortable when booking with Airbnb because they can see what other people thought of their experience at a particular listing.
The collaborative aspect of the platform is specific to web 2.0 sites and is very important for users: the presence of online reviews verified by travelers who have actually stayed in the accommodation allows future tenants to confirm their choice and to ensure a good stay. Discussing directly with the owners is also a strong element of reassurance before making a reservation.
Takeaway: Understanding what people want is one of the keys to success
The founders of Airbnb succeeded in translating what people wanted into a business opportunity. It is not enough to know what people want; something must also be done with this information. Airbnb's founders knew they could create an online marketplace by connecting buyers and sellers with similar needs — in this case, people renting out their homes while traveling or landlords looking for additional income.
By creating a platform in the era of time and with technologies adapted to the general public, Airbnb has found the right tempo and the right economic model. Subsequently, the development of the company, its site and its functionalities managed to stay on course to create new opportunities and make Airbnb one of the most successful companies of its time by becoming itself a new travel and seasonal rental design.
The seasonal rental has been transformed by Airbnb:
An online vacation rental business may seem like a simple idea, but it's the execution of this idea that has made Airbnb so successful. To begin with, there was no vacation rental service when Airbnb launched in 2008. By understanding what people wanted from a vacation rental, Airbnb was able to create a product that would appeal to travelers and hosts alike. . The company not only addressed hosts' concerns about safety and host quality, but also ensured that traveling tenants had enough information about their listing before booking it and could contact hosts. upstream.
