Airbnb Experiences VP Joe Zadeh has stated the business has an “ambitious vision to revolutionise the tours and activities industry.”
In June last year it was reported that Airbnb Experiences has been growing 10 times faster than its original Homes feature, with the former notching 1.5 million bookings a year.
Airbnb’s Experiences programme was introduced in 2016 and designed to meet the needs of its traveling customers to get involved in an activity on their trips.
In an interview with Skift, Zadeh said that booking companies have made “very little offline innovation,” and have instead focused on making the same ticket, tours or activities easier to find and book.
“They haven’t focused on making the experiences better themselves,” Zadeh added.
“There is a tremendous opportunity to double down on this business unit and make new, aggressive investments in our long-term growth. That’s exactly what we have done.”
Since launching in 2016, the vertical has grown exponentially from having 500 listings available in just 12 cities, to boasting more than 30,000 Experiences in over 1,000 cities.
Zadeh added: “Hypergrowth has encouraged us to be all the more rigorous when it comes to quality. Last year, we focused on global expansion and did this at an incredible rate, jumping from coverage in around 60 cities to over a thousand.”
Live music events have taken prominence in the Experiences section, leading Airbnb to launch a separate Concerts page in February 2018.
Image: TeroVesalainen
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