The Future of Tourism between Online Booking and Sharing Economy

Airbnb has three founders, two of which are designers and not engineers as it is supposed to be. As we mentioned before, for Airbnb at the beginning of its story this represented a problem in terms of credibility in order to attract funds, but eventually it has been its fortune. One of the main characteristic of Airbnb is the incredible user-friendly approach and charming graphic.

Even at the first visit of the website, everything seems clear, business model is well explained, houses are perfectly described with lots of high quality photos, and the feeling is to have been there before. There is a kind familiarity thanks to the easy structure of the website, catching pictures are central, both in the desktop and mobile version. At the moment of the creation of the personal profile, the process becomes really engaging; forget about boring data entries and grey long forms, in Airbnb they help you build your host identity.

The first requirement is of course a personal picture, in which they ask for not putting a landscape “it is not so exiting to rent a home from a landscape” the recital says. Second step is amazing, they make the user create his own brand logo, they make the user think about the feeling he has when travelling and what values he wants to communicate when hosting. Then a kind of app opens and let the user select between different shapes, colours, in an ideas’ rich context. Even the less creative man on the world would be captivated by that process.

Airbnb put the user at the centre of the stage and give him a box of colourful crayons to sketch the man he wants to become by renting and travelling. It is more than moving for few money and earning a living by renting empty rooms. It is about rebuilding an identity, creating a brand with no boss telling the user what to do, it is about making people embrace the possibility to change their lives, starting from a rethinking of their values.

After that, the user is invited to consider the possibility to buy printed objects with the logo just created, like cups to serve breakfast to guests, or t-shirts to sleep, postmarks to keep in touch; the user is definitely involved in doing a marketing investment on himself. This is absolutely new comparing to OTAs, which only ask for the hotels’ money to get ranked in their pages, but which don’t invest in building a relationship with their clients. That is one of thinnest reasons why OTAs are perceived as “frenemies”, while Airbnb is beloved by its users, it is not just a matter of lower percentages on commissions. User experience and mobility are as important as customer service, to succeed in the marketplace.

Customer expectations are increasing, and competition is making advances quickly, desktop usage is reducing and customer loyalty is as good as the shopping experience otherwise a hard earned customer is lost forever. Airbnb has well learned this lesson, and as we mentioned before its mobile version is optimized. Travel business is not just about booking engines, but also about globalization, user experience, customer service, data security, travel content and trust.

One of the problem of Airbnb is the trust gaining, the fact that users don’t know each other and could be threaten. This is a big gap that can’t be defeated but can be limited by the entering of rules and assurances. Talking about assurances Airbnb has a roof of 1 million dollars for damages to the host, but this is not enough. If we look at the exceptions of the assurance, we notice that “missed earning” is not covered, “sexual harassment” and “terrorism” neither. One of the target to be improved is the enlargement of assurance at least to ensure safe payment.

Moreover more rules have to be applied to fiscal regulation and hygienic concerns, as already mentioned before. To the extent of creating trust, the main work as to be done to give assurance to host and guest, by empowering the role of trusted reviews and building direct links between the parts.