IN revealing plans to welcome back travelers to its stays, travel company Airbnb rolls out a number of updates that acknowledge the challenges the travel industry continues to face in the Covid-19 era. These updates include flexible ways to plan trips and search for accommodations.
Some of the new features allow users to forgo putting in exact dates and destinations when they look to book for accomodations on the platform. It also offers a wider selection of listing results when guests search for a place to stay by surfacing homes just outside of their search parameters.
“You can say that you want to travel for one week over the next three months, or perhaps one weekend in the month of August,” said Airbnb cofounder and chief strategy officer Nate Blecharczyk in a recent media event. “Instead of specifying exactly where you want to go, you can say that you want to find an island to stay on. Or you want a boat, and it will show you places in the region that meet that criteria,” he added, noting that not only does this give guests more options to browse, but it should also increase exposure for hosts. Alongside flexible search updates is the improved host flow on the platform, where computer vision deep-learning models automatically arrange photos based on guest appeal, while smart text suggestions help hosts craft the best title and description for their listing.
In fact, Airbnb revealed that for new listings that were activated and booked within the first quarter of the year, 50 percent received a reservation request within four days of activation.
“There is incredible demand, and we expect that to only grow as travel rebounds,” Blecharczyk said.
Airbnb is also making upgrades to its community support department, doubling the number of support agents available and expanding support coverage from 11 to 42 languages. It has also redesigned the Help Center, with easier navigation, for both hosts and guests. In the Philippines, the company has launched seven Host Clubs across the country, based in Cebu, Baguio, Metro Manila, Rizal, Western Visayas, Lapu Lapu and Quezon. Host Clubs are where hosts, guests, small business owners and community leaders collaborate and share their best tourism practices.
“There’s light now at the end of the tunnel. Vaccinations are rolling out, restrictions are loosening, and so we expect all of travel to rebound and we expect that pattern to be true in the Philippines as well,” said Blecharczyk.
The executive likewise said that much of Airbnb’s key updates were informed by its 2021 trend report, supported with data from analytics firm YouGov, which revealed that Filipinos are turning to Airbnb for affordable and family friendly domestic travel, as well as hosting to support themselves and their local communities during the pandemic.
Tourism Secretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, in a pre-recorded speech, lauded the company for its efforts in helping revive the local tourism industry.
“From the earliest days of the pandemic, we have stated that our recovery will be driven by reviving domestic tourism. Fortunately for the Philippines, we have had a historically robust domestic travel industry,” she said.
“In 2019, we recorded 110 million domestic trips and, significantly, revenues generated from domestic tourism accounted for the lion’s share of 10.8 percent of tourism’s 12.7 percent contribution to the country’s gross domestic product,” she added. “To bring back the demand for local tourism, we must prioritize the issues of health and safety.”
“Airbnb, alongside the Philippine host community, is making sure that when people are ready to travel again, they will be welcomed with open arms,” said Blecharczyk.