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Airbnb Is in Midlife Crisis Mode
Airbnb's CEO is spending hundreds of millions to relaunch his travel company as an all-purpose service app. Fitness! Food! Microdermabrasion? A WIRED exclusive.
It is also revitalizing an unsuccessful experiment the company began in 2016: offering bespoke local activities, or what it calls “experiences.” The next stage, launch date unspecified, involves making your profile on Airbnb so robust that it’s “almost like a passport,” as Chesky puts it. Airbnb has been vetting the new vendors, which it calls “service hosts.” For months, Chesky says, an army of background researchers has been scrutinizing the résumés, licenses, and recommendations of chefs, photographers, manicurists, masseuses, hair stylists, makeup artists, personal trainers, and aestheticians who provide spa treatments such as facials and microdermabrasions. It will be interesting to see how the company handles the inevitable cases of food poisoning or bad haircuts (and skeezy customers), but Airbnb can draw on its 17 years of experience with dirty sheets, all-night discos on the ground floor, or a host who is literally terrorizing you.
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