

1 million nights booked at Airbnb (YC W09) - Raphomet
http://blog.airbnb.com/airbnb-celebrates-1000000-nights-booked

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ben1040
Glad to see a lot of people were able to book rooms there. I wasn't, but not
for lack of trying.

I wish they would offer hosts more flexible controls for showing availability
(and make sure hosts use them) so that people don't try to book places only to
get negative responses from hosts who don't know if it'll be available at the
time and to check back later. I was trying to book a place in SF for Google
I/O and got a lot of responses saying that May is too far out for them to say
for sure. It got pretty frustrating.

I don't have a place to host so I can't see what the controls exactly look
like right now, but from browsing available properties it looks like the
default case is that the place shows up as "available" unless there's an
Airbnb booking in effect for a given date or the owner explicitly has blocked
it out.

Given my experience searching for places, it'd be nicer if hosts had the
option to say things like "don't show as available further out than X time
into the future" or "default as unavailable except on specific days."

~~~
Raphomet
Hey, thanks for your feedback! We're continually working to improve the core
experience on Airbnb, and we'll be fleshing out some updates to the
calendaring system in the near future to address problems like this.

(I'm a backend engineer at Airbnb - feel free to write me at raph@airbnb.com
if you have any other feedback to pass along.)

~~~
ben1040
Awesome, looking forward to trying again when there's a little more clarity in
availability (or when I need a place on short notice, because it looks like
that kind of situation is where Airbnb really hits it out of the park).

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smackfu
For perspective, a single large Vegas hotel books that many nights each year.
(For instance, Mandalay Bay has 3300 rooms.)

~~~
emmett
Mandalay bay does not have 100% occupancy 365 days per year. They probably
don't even have 50% occupancy 365 days per year. But yes, it's about the size
of a VERY large hotel.

~~~
browser411
Vegas has very high occupancy rates. Even in the down economy, it's around
80%. <http://cber.unlv.edu/tour.html>

~~~
emmett
Wow, impressive! And based on actual data, as opposed to numbers I made up :-)

~~~
jackowayed
Wouldn't be surprised if they tweak their thresholds for comping rooms to fill
rooms that would otherwise go vacant.

~~~
smackfu
They also have tweaked pricing to keep rooms filled. The same room at MB is
going for $70 on 3/13 (Sunday) vs. $270 on 3/16 (Wed). (To be honest,
sophisticated enough that I don't even really understand that. Usually it is
the weekends that have the prices jacked.)

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stevenbrianhall
I've done my part, renting 4 places in Zurich, Milan, Barcelona, and
Strasbourg over the last 2 weeks. I have yet to have a bad experience, and as
soon as I move into my place, will absolutely be listing it.

In fact, I'll be looking for an apartment with with an extra room,
specifically to rent on Airbnb. Not just for the monetary aspect, but I've met
some incredible folks over the past few weeks. The model just works.

~~~
catshirt
for now, but is it not subject to the same kind of quality degradation that
all online communities are?

~~~
stevenbrianhall
I imagine it is, but the bi-directional reviews show that the company has
thought about that from the beginning.

I'm MUCH more likely to book a place that is reviewed well, and I am sure that
my reviews play a role in the renters decisions to accept me, as well.

~~~
smackfu
The trick is growing the user base to new users that have no reputation. If
"good" places won't rent to me, then the quality of the rentals from my
perspective is quite poor.

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chr15
I booked a room on AirBnB when I visited Los Angleles. I spoke with the owner
of the room and he said he made $4000 in 3 months off of his 2 rooms. AirBnB
is on to something.

~~~
jjcm
I wouldn't say the calling to the site is based on monetary gain. By
comparison, he'd make that same amount if he rented each of those rooms for
$670/month (a pretty cheap price for California) - and it'd require a lot less
work. I think the bigger call to it is that you can meet new people in an
interesting context. It's a fun thing to do, in my opinion.

~~~
webwright
Having a boarder is VERY different than having people drop in for a night here
and there.

He could rent a room for $700 a month or $90/night. The latter works out
better assuming he can rent it for 8 nights per month AND allows him to keep
in available for friends/family who are coming into town, etc. I think the
"fun" aspect of it is definitely part of it for some folks, but I'd wager it's
less than you think.

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mcdowall
Congrats, as someone who has seen the hard side of the Travel Industry these
are truly remarkable figures.

Good luck for 2011.

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valjavec
Congrats!

I really like when Brian's grandfather (Brian is CEO and founder) found idea
just fine, as that's the way people were "travelling" 60+ years ago - they
just stayed at someone's house. Like history reinvented.

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r00k
Last night I was wondering if Airbnb has the kind of traffic that would make
it feasible to buy a condo somewhere popular (downtown Boston, for example)
with the goal of renting it full-time.

I'd love to hear from people who've rented out rooms/apartments through Airbnb
in a popular area. How was the demand?

~~~
jonknee
Depending on the city it does, but many of those cities are quickly trying to
shut it down. Hotels and other officially sanctioned places of lodging aren't
too jazzed on the idea of unregulated (and thus untaxed) competitors.

An example, New York City has banned rentals for less than 30 days.
Enforcement is another issue though, so I guess we'll have to wait until May
when the law goes into effect to see what happens.

[http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2010...](http://travel.usatoday.com/destinations/dispatches/post/2010/07/new-
york-governor-approves-short-term-apartment-rental-ban-in-nyc/101054/1)

~~~
gustaf
People are already doing that on Airbnb, at least in New York. We'll have to
see if the new law will have any impact the basis of it is a huge mess.

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forkandwait
We, ahem, tried to book in Vancouver BC, but had a few issues. Since I know
the airbnb folks hang out here, I will elaborate: We tried to book a room and
found that the slow response time from our candidate people made it impossible
to fix up a place in short enough notice.

However, there was something in this process which might have alienated the
spouse from airbnb forever (much, much more than the convenience/ time lag
factor): We exchanged emails with the airbnb people, who were quite helpful,
and in one of them said something like "the owner pulled back from the
agreement at the last minute because he lost power from a snowstorm, which is
quite reasonable." Or something to that effect. A couple of weeks later, the
owner emailed us, basically screaming "why did you post such nasty things
about me?" Turns out someone from airbnb had put "the owner pulled back from
the agreement at the last minute" onto the owners feedback page, with neither
our permission nor any context (like, the power went out because of the
snowstorm). My wife emailed airbnb and the comment got pulled, but it didn't
leave a great taste in our mouth.

I may not be remembering _exactly_ the exchange, but it was pretty close to
that. If you ever want my wife to consider airbnb again, it will probably take
some cold hard cash.

Otherwise, I love the idea!

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zhyder
Estimate of revenue to date: $50 per night * 3% * 1M = $1.5M

Hmm looks like Airbnb handles the credit card transaction for the lister. If 2
out of that 3% goes to the credit card companies and banks, the adjusted
revenue is $500k.

~~~
uptown
Anybody have any insight into how they handle taxation? Is it up to the
homeowner to declare any income derived from their rental as taxable income,
or is up to Airbnb to keep track of the tax codes for every locale they have
listings for?

~~~
kapilkale
In their T&Cs it says the host is responsible (last I checked)

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bignoggins
Wonder how airbnb is internationally. Leaving for a year long round the world
trip w/ my wife in april and so far have found some great deals in sydney and
seoul. My plan is to use airbnb exclusively. Better deals than hostels in many
places. Our travel blog is www.shenventure.com if anyone is interested.

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jackowayed
Everyone's missing the most impressive part. 65% revenue growth in the past
month. I'm not sure if some of that has to do with the particular month (I'd
think more people travel in December than January, but I guess a lot of them
stay with family?), but if they sustain that growth, they'll get huge fast.

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karanr
Ok AirBnB, great work so far. you've got 11 months till my honeymoon, get me
some more choices: GO!

~~~
krmmalik
I have my honeymoon coming up in 8 weeks and wasnt sure if AirBNB was a good
idea for that(?)

You've convinced me to at least give it a serious consideration. Unfortunately
i've never seriously used AirBNB before.

Any advice?

~~~
karanr
Yeah I think Airbnb would be a great alternate to expensive luxury hotels.
From what I have seen, even some hotels seem to post listing at comparable
prices here. Ultimately its really up to you what kind of honeymoon you like.
Do you want one where you get room service, and other hotel luxuries at your
beck and call, or do you want to be left alone and handle everything yourself.
In my view, the best of both worlds would be one of these beach front villas,
with a private beach, and hiring a butler for the stay so you don't have to
worry about having service.

~~~
krmmalik
Sorry for the late reply. I'm going to Sorrento, Italy. I ended up getting a
hotel for very cheap, but i really need to consider the AirBNB idea more. My
wife and i werent sure about how much privacy we were going to get amongst
other things. I'd love to hear more about how you would have done something
like this. I think i need to learn to be a little more adventurous when it
comes to this kind of stuff.

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dolphenstein
Is there some kind of unwritten rule that states any submission with (YC W*)
needs to be upvoted straight away? I'm sure if the title was "Hotels.com
reaches 1 billion bookings" wouldn't get the same attention. Anyways,
congratulations!

~~~
zaidf
If Hotels.com had launched on HN, regularly had founders and employees
interact with members here, then I think Hotels.com too would get upvoted
similarly when they achieved such feats.

There are so many YC companies that if every YC company was upvoted similarly,
there wouldn't be anything but YC coverage on the homepage.

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nickconfer
My favorite part about their Info Graphic is that is took 11 months from idea
to launch. Its also interesting to see the 4 year timespan.

So often we can get frustrated by the time our ideas take to reach their goal,
but its easy to forget success is hard work and rarely comes overnight.

Congrats to the Airbnb.

~~~
minalecs
Not to marginalize these guy's success in any way, but being part of the
winter 09 ycombinator class probably helped in a big way (right around time of
their major bump)

~~~
SkyMarshal
The YC pedigree probably helped with capital and hiring, but I'm curious how
they solved the chicken and egg problem of getting enough rentals to attract
enough renters to attract more rentals... etc. Alot of hard work and selling,
I imagine.

~~~
minalecs
Well don't discount the PR and hype. Reputation plays a huge factor on a
service like this. Yes, hard work and persistence is the real factor of this
success.

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c1sc0
Anyone know what's up with the speed issues? I've been trying to book a room
for SXSW for days now & at least from here (CH) the site is unusably slow.
Weird since my last experience booking a place in Vienna 5 months ago was
great.

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cft
What about renting an apartment specifically for the purpose of putting it up
on AirBnB? In San Francisco or NY this could make some money.

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yoshyosh
awesome news! congratulations

Did you guys happen to have the girl who used a website design as a resume
create this for you? :)

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kirpekar
Posterous fail

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perokreco
I am a bit unnerved with airbnb, as they took something people have been doing
for free(couchsurfing), and are now incentivizing people to charge money for
it.

