‘You should expect some big things from us in Japan,’ says Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, who also reveals how the company is leveraging movie culture to gain traction in new markets.
Globetrender attended the recent Skift Forum in New York where Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky took part in a live video-call conversation with Skift co-founder Rafat Ali. Here is what he said in regard to the future of overtourism and innovative forms of marketing…
Ali: “Barcelona has said that they will ban Airbnb in five years and in 2024 we have had the ‘summer of overtourism’, particularly in southern Europe. What’s your sense of how that gets solved and what’s Airbnb’s role in it?”
Chesky: “What is overtourism? I don’t think any of us believe there’s too much travel. I don’t think any of us believe there’s too much tourism. I think what overtourism is, is too many people going to the same place at the same time. That’s overtourism. I think we can all agree that cities have a capacity. And that when you over flood a city Then the locals get driven out. It can feel like a museum. It’s crowded. There’s selfie sticks everywhere.
“The antidote to overtourism is one of two things: Either fewer people travelling, or redistribution. Distribute people along a calendar of different days, and distribute them to more destinations. I’m hopeful that [the latter] is the solution to over tourism, not fewer people travelling.
“When I went to Paris, one of the things that officials in Paris said, at the national government level, is ‘We also want to figure out how to get people to other parts of France’. And the reason why so many people go to Paris? The reason is that platforms such as Airbnb and the online travel agents have a search box. And the search box is what we call a ‘fill in the blank question’. We make you type a city. 
“Airbnb is in a 100,000 cities. I guarantee you people can’t think of more than a hundred places. And so they type all the same places. And so they type Paris and Rome and New York, and everyone goes the same place.
“And so what we have to do, is inspire them – so you, like Paris, but have you considered this other place that very few people go, you can go for half your money, but it’s also a very romantic city with a lot of culture. So I think the holy grail for overtourism is redistribution of travel. But that requires us, the travel industry, to inspire more long-tail destinations.
“I think AI can be massive for this. I think AI can help be like the ultimate travel concierge. That could introduce you to this really long-tail of markets. But again, as I said before, I think AI is going to take a lot longer than people thought.”
Ali: “The Icons release obviously got you a lot of press. How real is it now, and what’s your sense of how it continues?”
Chesky: “Last year, the Barbie movie came out. And we worked with Mattel and we found this mansion in Malibu, and we turned it into the Malibu Barbie Dreamhouse. And it became a sensation, and it got more than double the press articles as our IPO. Which is crazy, it was one of the biggest parts of the promotion of Barbie. So we asked ourselves, what if we built a platform, our own category, of Airbnb Barbies? When a movie’s out, they can turn it into an experience, and it’s been really successful.
“We launched probably the most iconic one we did was the Up House. We actually worked with Disney to recreate the Up house. We just built a 40-foot Polly Pocket and we’ve got a bunch of other ones coming out. And I’ve been asked by investors, ‘How do you make money on this?’ And the answer is ‘we don’t’. This is basically marketing. It’s an alternative form of marketing.
“It’s very successful at driving conversation, driving traffic, and it is especially helpful in three areas: young people, social media and emerging markets. So young people obviously like all this IP – whoever wins the new generation generally wins the future. Social media, this stuff ends up on TikTok Instagram. I do think social media will eventually rival Google for travel search? And the third is international markets.
“Icons are a great way to go into international markets. We’ve got Janhvi Kapoor, one of the biggest Bollywood actresses in the world, and that was massive in India. We think this is a way to warm the water, pre-advertising in new markets.”
Ali: “What’s the most exciting new market for you from a global perspective?”
Chesky: “Japan. It’s the third-largest economy in the world after China and the US. It’s a huge travel market. I think as a destination, it is one of the most aspirational places in the world. I mean, who doesn’t love to go to Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto? I think it’s a very hard market to crack. It’s really different, but unlike China, American companies have succeeded in Japan. You should expect some big things from us in Japan.
“China is on the roadmap from an outbound demand standpoint. So we no longer have homes in China. The short answer is just really wasn’t profitable. It had India ADRs with US costs, and that just doesn’t make sense. And a lot of it was cross-listed, so we had a lower take rate. It was more commoditised. It was very expensive to operate so the business model, from a supply standpoint, didn’t really make a lot of sense.
“So we decided to shut that part of the business down and take that money and put it into Chinese travellers leaving China to go to other countries. We felt like that was something we could win, so we’re still focused on that part.”