Airbnb Business Model | Business Model Navigator

Overview:

Airbnb is an American company which operates an online marketplace and hospitality service for people to lease or rent short-term lodging including holiday cottages, apartments, homestays, hostel beds, or hotel rooms, to participate in or facilitate experiences related to tourism such as walking tours, and to make reservations at restaurants. The company does not own any real estate or conduct tours; it is a broker which receives percentage service fees in conjunction with every booking. Like all hospitality services, Airbnb is an example of collaborative consumption and sharing. The company has over 4 million lodging listings in 65,000 cities and 191 countries and has facilitated over 260 million check-ins.

Industries:

Information Technology

Hospitality

Similar firms (based on pattern co-occurrence):

2 shared patterns

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2 shared patterns

3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

4 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

4 shared patterns

3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

3 shared patterns

2 shared patterns

Business Model Patterns:

Affiliation

How they do it: Airbnb offers an affiliate program for the acquisition of customers as well as new hosts. Websites who feature an Airbnb listing get a commission for every booking that they drive through their audience. Same goes for affiliates who showcase Airbnb hosting opportunities.

Cross Selling

How they do it: After starting with offering a marketplace for accomodations, Airbnb added the experience and restaurants category to their website, allowing customers to book experiences such as sightseeing tours, cooking classes, and various cultural activities right through the Airbnb website and get recommendations for activities close to their booked accomodation.

Customer Loyalty

How they do it: Hosts that attain outstanding customer reviews, are quick in responding to new booking enquiries and have a high amount of stays to their property will be rewared with a ”Superhost” badge. This allows them to highlight their accomodations to customers, get rewards and discounts from Airbnb as well as early access to new features.

Digitization

How they do it: Airbnb has put the traditional model of peer to peer hosting on an online platform. They managed to add mechanisms which increase the market place’s participants trust despite barriers such as geographic distance or language barriers, making it safe to rent out and book accomodations from and to strangers.

Leverage Customer Data

How they do it: Airbnb collects their customers data and utilizes them to drive both the amount of transactions (e.g. reminding customers to finish a search after some time) as well as allowing hosts to use the data collected by Airbnb to improve their offer e.g. through intelligent pricing.

Peer-to-peer

How they do it: The Airbnb platform connects hosts and travelers for accomodations and experiences. Airbnb is not responsible for providing the content or service but maintaining the platform and creating a surrounding which makes P2P transactions as easy and safe as possible.

Two-sided Market

How they do it: Airbnb offers a platform for everyone to offer their home, or experiences to guests. Airbnb’s focus lies purely on providing a reliable platform with safety mechanisms for both hosts and guests which simplifies the process of hosting and booking an accomodation.

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