Airbnb has become so pervasive in the leisure travel market, you just know there must be business travelers using it, too. And not surprisingly, Airbnb would like to encourage that. In an interview with Business Travel News, Marc McCabe, the company’s “business travel lead” discusses the issues that must be addressed.
To help build the business, Airbnb has created a business portal that lists only accommodations suitable for corporate travel; given companies codes for their employees to use to help track use, and more. To read the interview, click HERE.
They were fortunate to have a guide like you! There was a time when it was easy to say what part of Paris you wanted to stay in, and what rent range you were willing to pay, and what type of place, as well as desired amenities. I could be wrong, but it seems to me that these days you have to settle for some of those criteria and waste time hunting through the rest. Honestly, as much as I’ve had good experiences, my business is ripe for the picking if anyone could match the selection and simplify the process.
As an Airbnb user, and also a host, again I have the feeling that the company, while tooting their “community” horn, has again proceeded with changes to the site with no input from users, but rather as conceived by the designers working in their own little world. Particularly as a host, it regularly becomes a case of “you can’t get there from here”. This interview is an example, telling us that corporate users will be directed only to entire properties, rather than all properties available with criteria they choose. If they’d asked me, which from past experience they never will, I’d tell them that despite living in the country near a small town, I’ve had business travelers stay with me, the ones that book their accommodations themselves. So why would it matter if a business traveler is paying though a corporate account? I fail to see the reasoning for those not booking as a group. In general, after more experience with Airbnb than most on both sides, I believe they’ve overthought the site to the extent that it’s infinitely more complicated than it needs to be, but not enough to realize that the direction it now needs to go is reducing the kinks in the system that have resulted. It just keeps getting worse with no apparent attempt to get beyond the complications. I think they’re missing the boat yet again, techies thinking they’re smarter than the rest, and not looking at the big picture to discover they’re mistaken. The indicator for me that they’re going in the right direction will be when new users have a smooth experience on the site. At present it isn’t the case as often as not. New features should wait until what they have already works as smoothly as it should.
I definitely agree that the interface has become more difficult to use in many ways, although easier in a few. In particular, some parts of the filtering and some information…more difficult.
But I do think that the point of what McCabe was saying was that the corporate travel departments want to place restriction on what their employees can rent, and that Airbnb will help them do that…for their employees. Independent business travelers, or those who work for corporations with a more open-minded travel department, would not be affected.
My point, more succinctly, is that while I have no problem with Airbnb expanding it’s customer base, a surprising number of my guests are first-time users and I spend an inordinate amount of time trying to extract them from dead-ends they’ve gotten themselves into on the site. Until the booking process is a straight line, easily negotiated by new users, I believe their efforts would be better spent serving the customers they already have, before heading in new directions.