Airbnb CEO Hints That Cheaper Prices Are Coming
The Airbnb CEO discusses efforts to make listings more affordable.
An unadoring public has beleaguered Airbnb in recent months. The increasingly popular sentiment attached to the once endlessly popular vacation rental and home-sharing platform is: Why not just stay at a hotel? The cleaning fees, endless rules, hidden cameras, and the way it has turned into a gentrification super machine make hotels feel like the easier, safer, and cheaper choice more often than not. Some of The lackluster experiences in an Airbnb have become so universally understood that there was even a March Saturday Night Live sketch mocking the vacation rentals.
It has all been brutal for a company once considered the darling of the startup world and appreciated by world travelers, too. Airbnb, to the company's credit, hasn't totally buried its sand regarding general public scorn or specific customer complaints. Instead, over the last year, the company has made constant policy updates and platform changes in the hopes of keeping its customer base happy.
This has come in the form of more transparent pricing, limits on the number of rules and types of cleaning fees hosts can charge, and improvements to the host experience. Even more policies were put in place regarding where hosts were allowed to install cameras on rental properties. That has been paired with a glitzy charm offensive with the new Icons offering, bringing iconic film and TV settings to life and turning them into affordable vacation rentals.
But none of this has made a dent in one of the biggest complaints about the rental platform—it's really damn expensive. One of its direct competitors, Vrbo, has been gaining steam for offering an inventory of more competitively priced rentals, and hotel booking platforms haven't hesitated in making digs at the entire vacation rental accommodation model.
Now, the pricing seems to be the next significant change the Airbnb CEO is gunning for. In an earnings call, CEO Brian Chesky addressed the price hikes. "A year and a half ago, we noticed that, you know, there was a lot of concern about Airbnb prices increasing," Chesky said, according to Business Insider.
During the call, Chesky outlined some of the already implemented changes, such as the guidelines on cleaning fees, transparent pricing, and a tool for hosts that helps them see listing prices for vacation rentals in their area on other platforms to help hosts set more competitive prices. Chesky said that since the cleaning fees have been added to the total cost, 300,000 hosts across the platform have lowered or removed their cleaning fees. There has also been a push to encourage hosts to offer discounts for week and month-long bookings, which two-thirds of hosts on the platform now reportedly offer.
Many of these changes began to be implemented in 2023, and according to Skift, Chesky says this has reduced the average price of Airbnb listings in 2024 by 2% compared to 2023. "The net of all of it is that hotel prices are up year-over-year, and Airbnb listings on a like-for-like basis are down," Chesky said on the call.
It is unclear if the initiatives already in place will be the end of Airbnb's efforts to tackle affordability or if the public scrutiny over rental prices will push for additional measures to lower prices on the platform. Whatever the case for the customer, the company certainly isn't hurting; Airbnb reported quarter one revenue to be $2.1 billion, an 18% increase.
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