In recent years, the travel accommodation market has had a huge shake-up with individuals able to list a room or an entire property, thanks to Airbnb. Due to recent market changes, increasing competition and niche market segments thriving, Airbnb has shaken up the way they offer accommodation, once again.
This week the company has rolled out the several new website features which include new properties, different rental tiers, special accommodations for large groups, updated super host and super guest programmes creating a new loyalty programme for hosts and guests.
The new search features are more in line with competitors, so you no longer have to only select from three options. Previously you were only able to select, shared space, private room or an entire home. This made it difficult to filter down to what you wanted compared to what placeless like HomeAway were offering with several filters including castles and cottages.
Airbnb also launched Plus, aimed at offering hand-vetted, top-quality properties. These homes are verified for quality, by Airbnb, from a 100 plus point checklist and will be available to search for under the new Plus tier. At present this new tier is only available in 13 cities, but as Airbnb continues to verify this will grow. When you arrive at a Plus property, you should expect your place to look just like did the photos, not something which may look similar, which we’ve found on a few occasions (photos used from six years prior, as an example).
Finally, Airbnb has launched Collections, aimed at travellers in large groups. This could be used by a small company who wanted to take a group of employees to reward for good results, or for when you want to take the extended family away or perhaps a location to organise your wedding? Usually, it is very difficult to find spaces available to host that amount of people just by trawling through Airbnb, but with the new categories, this will be more easily accessible.
The first two collections available are ‘work’ and ‘family’ but ‘wedding’ should launch later this year. We are already big fans of Airbnb and what they’ve done to the lodging segment of travel, we hope these changes will continue to solidify that.
