The year 2023 finds Airbnb Inc. going through one of its most difficult times according to CEO Brian Chesky openly discussing the company’s fundamental issues.
According to The Times, Chesky recently discussed the chaos brought on by the conflicting needs of customers seeking pricing and hosts demanding increased profit margins. He blamed this scenario on the company’s rapid development without a solid base.
Chesky simply summarised Airbnb’s predicament, saying, “Our technology was created for a far smaller organization that developed rapidly. It’s kind of like we never finished building the foundation, to use a technical metaphor. For instance, our house only had four pillars when we needed 10.”
He said, “We need to organise our home. We must guarantee that our listings are excellent, our customer service is top-notch, and our prices are competitive. And I’ve said to our staff that once we’ve fixed that foundation, we can return to making new and interesting things.”
Chesky, who established the business in 2008, emphasized Airbnb’s ongoing problems with consistency and dependability.
These issues developed as a result of the platform’s quick growth without a parallel improvement of its supporting infrastructure.
He emphasized the importance of competitive pricing for hosts, particularly in areas with a large number of hotels. Chesky reiterated the significance of hosts optimizing their pricing approaches to maintain local competitiveness.
Airbnb uses AI for quality control in the long and short term, mostly to confirm the accuracy of postings.
In order to assign a confidence score and successfully reduce bogus listings, AI examines photographs that hosts have submitted and compares them with databases. This enhances the entire consumer experience.
Airbnb experienced an “Airbnbust” earlier in March when hosts tweeted their worries about shrinking profit margins and concerns about a short-term rental bubble.
In addition, the business fell behind rival Vrbo in launching a long-awaited reward program, disappointing customers.
The business of Airbnb, which once accounted for around 80% of its operations, has been considerably impacted by the strict limits on short-term rentals that New York City implemented in September.
The return-to-office rules have also hampered the flexibility that was a key factor in Airbnb’s success during the outbreak.
By the middle of September, Chesky was dealing with a challenging situation where customers were looking for lower costs and higher-quality listings while hosts were concerned about declining bookings and profitability.
