Airbnb's Rethink On Experiences Again: A Strategic Decision or a Step Back?
Photo Credit: Girl at Hobbiton Village Experience. Source: Unsplash Unsplasj / Lakerain Snake
Skift Take
Connecting people with host experiences unique to the destinations they visit fits snugly into the Airbnb brand. But the scalability of these experiences is in doubt and the strategy for moving ahead has not been publicly communicated.
Airbnb's pause in onboarding new experiences has raised questions about its long-term strategy.
As first reported by Skift, what the company has quietly done, in addition to stopping the onboarding of any new experiences, whether from current experiences' hosts or new ones, is to remove these tours and activities from the Airbnb homepage.
A snap look at Airbnb's homepage via the Wayback Machine shows that a year ago, in April 2022, travelers could select these tabs, Places to Stay, Experiences and Online Experiences.
In May 2022, Airbnb launched its new categories search that favored stay options, with experiences only searchable after activating an accommodation search.
A look at the homepage in April 2023 shows experiences remain ghosted out of sight, even though Airbnb reactivated Experiences towards the end of September last year — it hasn't been given the same love and attention as before.
Wayback Machine View of Airbnb Homepage in April 2022
Airbnb Homepage April 2023
Iconic vs Niche ExperiencesThe pause on new applications to launch Airbnb experiences is "big news, but not totally unexpected,” said Go City spokesperson Baidi Li, former regional director Asia Pacific and Middle East and Africa at Tripadvisor's Viator. Li said that "despite all the digitization and consolidation in the past years, this vertical is still very fragmented."
Li pointed to an issue with Airbnb's approach to experiences. "Experiences supplie
