
Airbnb expands to experiences - enra
http://airbnb.com/new
======
drizzzler
Airbnb has tried to do "experiences" so many times I've lost count.

Here's the one where they partnered with Vayable, all the way back in 2011:

[https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/02/airbnb-to-partner-with-
vay...](https://techcrunch.com/2011/12/02/airbnb-to-partner-with-vayable-to-
upsell-travel-experiences-to-renters/)

~~~
venantius
This is different. I work at Airbnb - we've been working on what was announced
today for quite some time, and it has been our intent to fully own and provide
an Airbnb-branding-appropriate offering.

~~~
rorykoehler
What were your motivations for this? It seems like the opposite experience of
what I use Airbnb for. If people were after hand holding tourism it's unlikely
they'd be using airbnb. Does this signal a shift in strategy away from what
made us all start using airbnb in the first instance?

~~~
Fuzzwah
From what I learned about AirBnB's origin story via an episode of NPR's How I
Built This [1], the original idea of AirBnB was a kind of "stay somewhere with
a local and experience the place not as a tourist" experience.

The fact that this kind of idea never went away even when everyone else found
that AirBnB fullfilled a different requirement doesn't surprise me.

[1] [http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-
this](http://www.npr.org/podcasts/510313/how-i-built-this)

~~~
ryhamz
Right. The original idea is now trashed. Airbnb doesn't care if someone is
operating a 20 bunk bed dorm room that they don't actually live in, as long as
they get a cut.

It couldn't get further from living like a local; it's just an AirBnHostel.

~~~
pmh
To expand a little on my sibling (prawn's) comment, I don't think the original
idea is trashed, but travelers do have more options now. I've stayed at an
"AirBnHostel" as well as "AirBnVacationHomes", but most of the time, I've
stayed with hosts who like to hang out and share their city/lives.

It's relatively simple to discern which type of AirBnB you're getting from the
host's description, and from the cities I've rented in (granted, mostly
popular/populous destinations), there's plenty of choice between the types.

~~~
personlurking
Strange. I mean, we only have our own experiences to go by, but every time
I've used Airbnb (throughout Europe) it's always been with a host who doesn't
live there and shows no desire nor feels any obligation to show their city
(much less talk) to the traveler outside of handing-off the keys. Even when
their profile might say differently. They were all way more Hotel than
Hospitality Club, so to speak.

~~~
ethanbond
Yeah, I had a lady cancel her reservation at my place in NYC after realizing
it wasn't a professionally operated hotel citing that she'd never experienced
such an arrangement on Airbnb.

------
11thEarlOfMar
This is awesome. My wife and I are planning a round the world trip to
celebrate our last college tuition payment. We've talked about becoming
'Citizens of the World' and eschewing the canned tourist experiences to
instead live the same lifestyle as the citizens of the countries we visit:
Stay in a neighborhood instead of a high-rise hotel, shop at the same grocery
stores, eat the same home-cooked meals, get around via the same transit, I
mean as high-fidelity as is reasonable. We expect the main friction will be
language, but we anticipate that we can work through that.

Thinking a little bigger, I can see no better way to combat bigotry and
nationalism than to experience life the same way as humans from the other side
of the planet, and realize that we are the same in so many ways.

~~~
GuiA
_> to instead live the same lifestyle as the citizens of the countries we
visit: Stay in a neighborhood instead of a high-rise hotel, shop at the same
grocery stores, eat the same home-cooked meals, get around via the same
transit, I mean as high-fidelity as is reasonable_

Until one of you gets severely sick or something like that, in which case
you'll be very happy to not live like a local anymore and fall back on your
home country.

This "citizen of the world" rhetoric seems to only ever be "citizen of the
world that we like". How about being a citizen of the world in North Korea, or
as a woman in Saudi Arabia, or as a gay teenager in Somalia?

Sorry, I have a hard time swallowing the "bourgeoisie traveling the world with
Airbnb is the best way to combat bigotry" bait.

~~~
malloryerik
You might try thinking about this from the other direction. I can tell you
from first-hand experience that once-shocking levels of South Korean
nationalism, and really, ethnic nationalism, have been calmed down to
something far far friendlier and more cosmopolitan, and it very much seems
that travel and exposure to other cultures (especially the West, but not only)
are what has done the trick.

Now as for being a North Korean, well, you are kind of proving the point
because North Koreans' number one problem is isolation from the world.

Back in the USA, what percentage of Trump voters do you imagine hold
passports? Sure, correlation is different from causation, but still...

So I can respect your call to realism, but at the same time it reminds me of
some old aphorism about babies and bathwater or something.

Incidentally, another baby that people seem to want to throw out when the
bathwater gets dirty is international trade.

~~~
hueving
>Back in the USA, what percentage of Trump voters do you imagine hold
passports? Sure, correlation is different from causation, but still...

About the same percentage as Hillary supporters? In my experience holding a
passport is more correlated with income than any particular political leaning.
What they do is likely a lot different (e.g. religious mission vs French wine
binge), but there is nothing particularly Democrat/Republican about a
passport.

~~~
malloryerik
I'm not quite sure that the numbers are as equal as you might think.

[http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/americas...](http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/03/americas-
great-passport-divide/72399/)

Also we should note that being Republican and bring a Trump supporter aren't
necessarily the same thing.

~~~
malloryerik
Btw most of the Trump supporters I've met overseas have had tied to the
military.

------
kofejnik
I'd rather prefer them to first stop skimming 50% on foreign exchange. Just
today saw this screenshot in my fb feed, someone's reservation cost was
converted at 100 rur/eur, whereas market rate is around 70 now. And they force
payment in rubles, like if Russians don't have enough problems already.

~~~
japanese_donald
I seriously doubt they are skimming. It's most likely the company that is
actually doing the currency exchange that is overcharging AirBnB and they are
pushing the cost onto the end user.

~~~
vinceguidry
It's a fairly common practice for states in autocratic regimes to force
foreign businesses operating in their country to cut them in on the action
with currency hijinx. Currency exchange rates are often purposely kept low for
precisely this reason. Even if it's the exchange company ripping them off, at
least half is going into some bureaucrat's pocket.

It's a cheap way for the regime to reward supporters without actually having
to come up with any real dough. Anyone supporting the regime has safe, easy
means of exploiting currency arbitrage whereas ordinary people are policed
heavily. Show up at the airport with a suitcase full of US dollars and
depending on your political status the customs agent will either close it back
up and send you on your way, or perp-walk you straight to jail after
confiscating your haul. (guess where it's going?)

It's also why one of the first demands the IMF makes on broke states before
they'll lend them money is to let the official currency rate float.

~~~
kofejnik
This does not apply to Russia, countless other sites allow payment in USD/EUR,
so it looks like management decision

------
ohazi
Why is this an app?

Why can't I use the airbnb website so that I can sit comfortably at a desk
with a real mouse and keyboard and calendar?

On a PC, you can open new tabs easily to read reviews, look at maps, make
itineraries, and comparison shop. This is torture on a phone, and as a result,
people just don't perform as thorough a search on mobile.

Airbnb knows this because they have data on how many options we consider
before making a reservation when we browse on phones vs. PCs.

With this app, they're trying to push us towards making a less informed
decision by limiting our ability to research the options, which seems
blatantly anti-consumer to me.

~~~
exclusiv
It appears their site has the same functionality.

------
ronaldc
This appears to be a clear competitor to that
[https://www.withlocals.com](https://www.withlocals.com)

~~~
kittyk
hey, that's true! I have used Withlocals before and I loved it. And when I saw
the 'experiences' part I thought I had heard it before and now I remember from
where.

------
chris11
Interesting. A startup, BeSomebody, actually just pitched this item on
SharkTank. His presentation did not go well at all, and he got no money. But
the idea seems really cool. So I'm glad Airbnb is implementing it.

~~~
shard
I was a co-founder of a startup which had this concept back in 2011. There
must have been some sort of global zeitgeist or something because during that
year over 40 competing startups showed up all over the world. Only a few
survived, and unfortunately my startup was not one of them. Even the ones that
did survive never did that well, Vayable and Viator got acquired, and some
small time sites are still dragging on.

I am curious whether AirBnB has a different take on it. The major problem is
that it is hard to deliver on that promise and implication of an authentic
experience from a local who is more interested in showing you his/her world
than money. Actual individual tour guides have scheduling issues due to them
having lives and jobs outside of giving tours, which then makes the system
favor organized tour operators, and we go back full circle to big tour groups.

~~~
chris11
That's a good point about not finding enough local guides. I'd expect people
would be less picky about housing assuming the quality and prices were
reasonable. But someone wanting to tour wineries might not be ok going
mountain biking if that was the only option available when they had time.

------
ryen
Tried Denver, Portland, and Venice Italy... "We couldn't find any experience.
Try removing your filters"

------
x0ner
Google seems like they have been pushing more into this "experience" space
with the creation of their local guide program. They've effectively introduced
a review-based system for anything inside of maps and incentivize people
through earned points for reviews, photos and other items. Google has been
sending emails out to local guides to conduct meet-ups and other inputs from
the users. Wondering how long before you can start contacting local guides
directly from the maps application.

------
kakkun
Am I missing something, or is there no way to search the Experiences?

~~~
enra
You can search them in the iOS/Android apps.

Unfortunately for now you cannot search them on the website, but you can
browse and see some of them featured on the home page.

------
travel_solo
I travel a lot and I have recently started to use Google trips and it's
amazing app which shows what to do for the day, when the attractions get
close, what's the nearest hotel, photos, translations of basic sentences and
more..

How this will be different from Google Trips? Does Airbnb has enough data to
show me relevant information? Or this is about partnering with local
businesses to find me a guide/get a massage?

------
kveykva
Went on a couple of these trips in Japan recently. Would definitely recommend
to others. They've found some great people.

~~~
Jeralt
I have a feeling their beta experience hosts will be their cream of the crop.
Once the general public starts hosting experiences, and Airbnb's quality
control falters, we'll see a lot of complaints about shitty or scamful
experiences.

~~~
natrius
That's what people thought about sleeping in strangers' apartments, but it
turns out that reputation systems do a pretty decent job of culling bad
experiences. "Don't get in a car with strangers" used to be common sense, but
now people do it every day.

------
known
I’m a guest. What are some safety tips I can follow?
[https://www.airbnb.co.in/help/article/241/i-m-a-guest--
what-...](https://www.airbnb.co.in/help/article/241/i-m-a-guest--what-are-
some-safety-tips-i-can-follow)

------
bogomipz
Why not just go out and have your own experience and be guided by your own
sense of adventure? Rent a bike and just explore. Stumbling upon new things
without an app or a guide book is one of the greatest joys of traveling.

The usual response to this question is "well I only have a few days or my time
is really limited." Which means you aren't going to "live like a local anyway"
if you only have 72 hours.

The places actual locals frequent will now become boxes to be ticked on a
"live like a local curated airbnb experience." And there will be lines of
people all trying to have the "local experience" just as you are. And these
are the people you will end up meeting and talking to. The actual locals will
have gotten fed up and started going elsewhere.

This article is worth a read, I think someone posted it here a while back:

[http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12325104/airbnb-
aesthetic-g...](http://www.theverge.com/2016/8/3/12325104/airbnb-aesthetic-
global-minimalism-startup-gentrification)

~~~
dkarapetyan
People don't like making choices. It is a cognitive burden especially if
you're in a new and unusual place. Unusual to you, not the locals obviously.
So having a guide can help and when you revisit the place you can go on a more
freeform adventure.

I think this is a pretty good idea but not sure how I feel about AirBnB
monopolizing the thing. If there is some kind of exclusivity component then
the aggregation of "experiences" on a single platform is not beneficial in the
long run.

~~~
bogomipz
>"People don't like making choices. It is a cognitive burden especially if
you're in a new and unusual place"

This is a rather blanket statement and you haven't supported it with any
evidence. I also don't believe this is true at all.

I don't think there are many people who spend money and time planning a trip
and then fly to to some far off place and upon arriving views exploring the
place that they traveled to "a burden." Those that do tend to either not
travel for leisure or else travel to the same places again and again or maybe
opt for package holidays.

"and when you revisit the place you can go on a more freeform adventure."

Many people never revisit the same places especially the ones really far away.
In fact a common refrain among travelers is "I would love to get back there"

~~~
dkarapetyan
It's a well researched phenomenon. You can start here
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decision_fatigue).
The brain is a lazy device and making decisions saps resources.

------
kriro
I feel like they should have done this under a different name. Or am I missing
something and "Positioning: The Battle for Your Mind" is an outdated tome and
not relevant anymore?

------
stared
So, does it mean that when I get a message from "Kate from Berlin" it is not
longer "an accommodation" but "an adventure"?

------
40acres
I think this is cool, I wanna go urban gardening with Ron.

~~~
kriro
I also thought that was the most interesting of the featured experiences.
Actually gardening with anyone is probably a really great/fun social
experience (I'd assume I do pretty much no gardening outside of some indoor
experiments).

------
canada_dry
Looks like [http://airbnbhell.com](http://airbnbhell.com) is gonna need more
storage!

------
showtimes
CTO of an adventure experience start up here. Wanted to share my thoughts.

The adventures are curated specifically by Airbnb it looks like. They are
mostly urban adventures so it doesn't cater to the adventure type. Overall the
app is great. Little Netflix but it's nice.

The major issue with this and what we've seen is real adventures are really
hard to get. Most of the outfitters have trust issues with technology because
they have been burned by the 50 other companies that tried to do this but were
sketchy. Gaining that trust is key and why they did this under Airbnb name is
going to hurt them.

Exciting validation for us and a welcome competitor but you can't throw money
at adventure market (climbing, skiing, fishing, diving, etc) and expect to
gain traction. Takes connections, trust and a show of commitment to the
industry.

~~~
supercoder
You must be terrified of this .

~~~
showtimes
Not at all. They will cater exclusively to urban adventures. Branching out to
real guided adventures will take them a long time. Trust me. Guides doing
backcountry adventures are a whole different breed. It also takes an
understanding of how permitting and licensing works for parks not to mention
the exclusive land permits.

------
vit05
I have had great experiences using couchsurfing. Never have anything near to
this using airbnb.

------
ojm
Wonder if this new app will work any better than the current garbage iOS app
which is essentially unusable.

Have to resort to mobile site (which is fine), and continue to be heckled to
switch to the app.

------
nobodynoes
Tldr so they have yelp now?

------
bsimpson
I just got an EULA-wall asking to agree not to treat anyone on Airbnb "with
bias or judgment" based on their origins.

That's not how bias/judgment work. You can't just agree to be unbiased, though
you can certainly try to be aware of your biases and to be accordingly more
sensitive to situations where you may be biased.

I wonder what the impact of this is. So many people blindly click "Agree" when
presented with legalese - will this be any different? Will anyone really click
the button that admits they are biased? Will anyone change their conditioned
behavior because they were nagged by a modal they saw one time and promptly
dismissed?

~~~
Alex3917
It's interesting to me that we hold AirBnB to one standard and Tinder /
OKCupid to a completely different one, even though they're both essentially
apps for finding someone whose house you can sleep in.

~~~
GFK_of_xmaspast
That's certainly a reckon, and one that reminds me of
[http://jezebel.com/incel-misogynist-wants-government-to-
pay-...](http://jezebel.com/incel-misogynist-wants-government-to-pay-women-to-
dat-508518581)

~~~
paulddraper
tl;dr a man with social anxiety wants call girls to be covered by insurance

------
diggan
Funny, the experience of "Send yourself an SMS to get our new app." instead of
just linking to Google Play for people in Spain is that it doesn't accept
spanish number format. Instead it asks for one extra number and if you pad it
with a zero, it throws an error "Unfortunately, a server error prevented your
request from being completed". So much for the Airbnb experience.

Even better that if you turn of JavaScript, then the links open up Google Play
instead of the annoying sms popup.

~~~
paglia_s
From my smartphone it shows Google Play and App store badges, maybe it's from
the desktop only that it asks for your mobile number?

~~~
diggan
Which is silly, since you can install the application on your phone from the
computer. I don't need an SMS to see a link...

~~~
steelcm
I presume they are capturing your phone number for nefarious marketing
reasons...

------
username223
> to fully own and provide an Airbnb-branding-appropriate offering.

Can you translate that into some human language? Probably not.

Here, let me try: people don't like you for legitimate reasons, and you
clumsily tried to make that go away. Sorry, dude, you weren't "brand-
appropriate." Can you give it another go?

~~~
dang
You can't comment like this on HN. Snark is deprecated here and personal
attacks are a bannable offence. Please post civilly and substantively, or not
at all.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12983005](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12983005)
and marked it off-topic.

------
acedinlowball
Wow... People on this website think so highly of themselves...

How old are you showtimes?

~~~
dang
Personal attacks are not allowed on Hacker News, regardless of how annoyed you
might be by someone else's comment.

We detached this comment from
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12985331](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12985331)
and marked it off-topic.

------
baybal2
Is it now a yet another pizza delivery/haircut scheduling app? Really, you
should try that. You will make more money than on those "food anthropologist"
thingies.

\-------

Ouch, -18? Are you downvoting me with your whole team?

~~~
paulddraper
You've underestimated the number of pizza delivery/haircut scheduling app
developers on HN.

~~~
supercoder
Hey I had that idea , who violated my nda

------
fiatjaf
Go ahead, sell your soul.

------
dorianm
\- 1 500 employees

\- 650 000 hosts

\- 3 billions in capital

\- Voted best place to work

\- And now experiences, places, flights and services

I think we will look back in the future at this moment and see how far we were
from where they got.

------
jsemrau
I am very happy to hear that! The app I developed drop!in
([http://www.idrop.in](http://www.idrop.in)) exists in a similar segment and
is doing well for the year. (Accenture Customer Innovation Award Finalist,
300K+ Events) . The more companies go into this segment it will help me
increase awareness for the solution. If someone is interested in buying it let
me know dropin_at_tenqyu.com !

~~~
jsemrau
I have no idea why this is being downvoted now.

~~~
bigheadpercoli
Dunno either. Congrats to your success. Cool app btw.

