Dance with a K-pop star? Wrestle a luchador? Airbnb to offer 22,000 experiences

Airbnb wants to bash your hair, navigator your dinner, massage your backmost and perchance photograph your honeymoon. All these services, and respective more, are portion of a caller bid by the institution to further grow beyond its roots arsenic a lodging broker.

The institution unveiled Airbnb Services — which includes 10 archetypal categories — portion relaunching its experiences programme and introducing a caller app plan astatine a media lawsuit successful Los Angeles connected Tuesday. Rather than heavy emphasizing lodging, the redesigned app much powerfully integrates each of its offerings and encourages much enactment among guests and hosts.

This caller attack opens caller possibilities for the institution and its customers, who could bid services and experiences from location oregon connected the road. But this measurement depends connected a batch of behind-the-scenes work. The caller services paper — which went unrecorded Tuesday with 10,500 offerings — volition beryllium offered successful 260 cities, and Airbnb vows to support consumers by cautiously vetting those legions of work providers.

Airbnb, calved successful 2007, grew to situation the edifice manufacture and became a elephantine successful the satellite of hospitality. It archetypal launched its Airbnb Experiences programme successful 2016, serving arsenic a matchmaker betwixt travelers and radical offering their services arsenic specialized circuit guides and teachers. But that effort sputtered.

By 2022, galore critics on Reddit and elsewhere were complaining that Airbnb experiences were unreliable, and manufacture website Skift reported that Airbnb had stopped adding caller experiences and reduced accent connected them connected its homepage. With this relaunch, institution representatives said, Airbnb is aiming to absorption much narrowly connected distinctive experiences that person been much intimately vetted. The institution besides said it would see much experiences focused connected gathering oregon spending clip with celebrities.

To start, Airbnb would connection astir 22,000 experiences successful 650 cities successful 22 categories. To denote the caller moves, Airbnb co-founder and Chief Executive Brian Chesky convened hundreds of influencers, podcasters and media successful a special-event abstraction successful Boyle Heights.

“What if you could Airbnb much than a spot to stay?” Chesky asked the audience. “Today we are changing question again.”

For instance, Chesky said, “Now you tin publication a nonrecreational cook to travel close to your home.” The aforesaid goes for photographers, idiosyncratic trainers, massage and spa treatments, hair-styling, constitution and nails. Moreover, “you don’t request to enactment astatine an Airbnb to publication these services. You tin publication them successful your ain city.”

Chesky said helium expects to adhd thousands of much services implicit the people of 2025.

In the lawsuit of Airbnb Experiences, “we’ve learned a batch astir however to marque them better,” said Chesky, tacitly acknowledging the feature’s uneven history. As before, the extremity is to springiness travelers an acquisition that reaches beyond the accustomed photo-op spots and bus-tour stops.

Stressing tiny groups, circumstantial themes, Chesky said the caller experiences volition autumn into 5 categories: past and culture; nutrient and drink; quality and outdoors; creation and design; and fittingness and wellness. He encouraged anyone who is an adept successful their metropolis and has thing to stock to use to beryllium a host. Airbnb representatives said the vetting process, which tin instrumentality up to 2 weeks, includes online scrutiny of a host’s enactment history, licensing, acquisition and immoderate awards — on with ongoing attraction to impermanent reviews.

The renewed programme besides includes astir 1,000 Airbnb Originals — adventures successful the institution of “the world’s astir absorbing people.” As examples, Chesky cited a mezcal-tasting league successful Mexico City with an expert, a people with a ramen maestro successful Tokyo, a creation with a K-pop performer successful Seoul and a sojourn to Notre Dame with an designer who worked connected the cathedral’s restoration.

Those offerings diagnostic astatine slightest a fewer personage options, which see spending a Sunday with Kansas City Chiefs backmost Patrick Mahomes, “learning to propulsion the cleanable spiral” oregon an anime-intensive brushwood called “Become an Otaku Hottie with Megan Thee Stallion.” Airbnb said those archetypal personage experiences are free, offered arsenic a promotion, with guests chosen from applicants.