Airbnb Office Visit - Meeting with Chip Conley

Airbnb office visit was the part that I’ve always been expecting before the trip and it turns out to be the most worthwhile part ever. Meeting with Chip Conley, the Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for Airbnb, is definitely the best part during the visit. Chip’s job is to help Airbnb regulate hospitality standards, improve guests’ satisfaction on the entire trip and evolve Airbnb into a full-fledged hospitality company.

Chip stated that hospitality is the most important direction that the company is working on although it is also the most difficult part at the same time. “How can we deliver hospitality when we don’t have any employee?” said Chip. As the hosting community is growing in a fast pace, it is of vital importance for Airbnb to ensure the quality delivered by hosts. To make the Airbnb guest experience more consistent from stay to stay and more reliable, he had created nine hospitality standards for hosts to follow – communication, check-in, accuracy, cleanliness, etc. The host-guest reciprocal review system is also essential for Airbnb to conduct quality control and track guest satisfaction. It’s interesting to know that 70% to 75% guests and hosts on Airbnb review each other while there are only less than 10% guests leave reviews for average hotels. Airbnb has a proper feedback loop which normal hotels don’t have. Guests and hosts are encouraged to leave reviews to each other after each stay. They can’t see the review left by the other party until they write a review too. All the reviews are open to public for future guests to look at before they make a reservation. The opaque review platform turns the worst characteristics (non employees personal hosts) to the best opportunities.

When Chip was asked about the competition with hotels industry, he confidently said that Airbnb perfectly fits the gap in the travel industry so it aims to become a global super brand of travel not only an alternative to hotel. He said that travelers want unique and personalized travel experience that most of the global hotel chains cannot afford. That’s why the concept of Airbnb – live like a local – works really well in the industry. Also, a research shows that people live with Airbnb tend to spend longer time to explore the city than regular hotel guests. We have enough reason to believe firmly that Aibnb is the market trends.

Chip is a charismatic leader. I can see the enthusiasm, passion and hospitality emanated from him. Thanks to this great opportunity that I can learn directly from the famous hospitality guru.