In a redesign bid to bring up more kinds of booking options in more streamlined ways, Airbnb is debuting what CEO Brian Chesky calls “the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade.”
In a Wednesday (May 11) video presentation on the company’s 2022 summer release, Chesky noted that “like millions of other people, I don’t have to be back in office five days a week,” in a nod to his Jan. 18 Twitter message reading “Starting today, I’m living on Airbnb. I’ll be staying in a different town or city every couple weeks.”
Chesky has been making the rounds lately, proclaiming the end of the office as we know it for experiential remote work.
According to May 8 story in Time magazine he’s letting employees work from anywhere — including overseas for up to three months — and has abolished location-based pay. And in Wednesday’s video, he laid out several innovations for the home sharing platform aimed at improving the experience of digital nomads and vacationers alike, starting with its new design and search features meant to bring more searchers straight to their ideal rental.
Courting Categories
Suggesting experiences in a better way is the function of Airbnb Categories, a new search feature that organizes home shares by uniqueness of location, architecture and more.
“For 25 years, the way you search for travel online has been the same,” Chesky said. “There’s a big box. It’s a search box and ask you a question, where are you going? And so, the first problem is you have to actually think of a place to go.”
A sampling of new categories includes predefined searches like “Countryside,” “World of Castles,” and Chesky’s personal favorite, simply titled “OMG.”
“We were trying to think of a name for this category, and the name OMG kind of like really summed it up because you have properties where you’re just like, ‘I can’t believe that even exists,’” he said as he showed a Yellow Submarine house built in a New Zealand forest.
Design is another new category, this one featuring 20,000 homes designed by notable architects or featured in design or architecture magazines.
See also: Home Buyers Look to Renting Out Rooms to Balance Costs
In addition to revamping search to inspire travelers with home share categories they might never have thought of, the platform is driving deeper into longer stays with the new Split Stays feature that pops up when travelers search long-term stays, packaging stays in two homes into a single experience.
Enhancements for Nomads
Airbnb is enhancing its offering with AirCover, a free series of guest protections that guarantees bookings if hosts cancel within a month of arrival, as well as check-in protection for inability to access a property, and a “Get-What-You-Book” guarantee assuring properties appear as advertised.
In any case, guests will be offered an equal or better property — or a refund. It also features a 24-hour safety line giving guests who feel unsafe access to agents trained to handle such incidents.
See also: Airbnb to Let Employees Live, Work Anywhere
A Work-From-Anywhere Reality
Chesky told Time that he thinks going to the office as we know it is a thing of the past.
“It’s kind of like an anachronistic form. It’s from a pre-digital age,” he said. “If the office didn’t exist, I like to ask, would we invent it? And if we invented it, what would it be invented for?”
He added, “The way to see the future is not to look at the big banks and the old companies. If you want to know what the workplace future looks like, look at young companies, because young companies basically don’t have any legacy. And young companies are flexible, they’re mobile, they’re kind of more nomadic. I think that’s probably what the workplace of the future will look like in 10 years.”
See also: Airbnb: Longer Stays Among Fastest Growing Segments as Work-From-Home Becomes the Norm
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