When Airbnb hired longtime hotelier and Joie de Vivre founder Chip Conley to serve as the company's head of hospitality in 2013, it was a clear signal that the company was looking to evolve beyond its low-rent couch-surfing roots, and class up the user experience. Since coming onboard, Conley has served as the self-described "voice of the Airbnb host", and lead initiatives that encourage hosts to provide a hotel-like experience that minimizes the chance a potential guest may turn away from the platform because they feel like they are taking a risk.
As a longtime Airbnb host myself, I was excited to sit down with Conley at the company's annual Airbnb Open conference, held this November in Paris. During a lengthy and candid conversation, he revealed a lot about how the company has changed, where he sees it going, and future features that users can expect.
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You come from the hotel world. While working in that industry, how familiar were you with Airbnb?
I had some familiarity, but I had never used the platform when I first got approached by [Airbnb CEO] Brian Chesky in early 2013. I've been in the hotel industry for 29 years, for most of that period Airbnb didn't exist. I really thought of Airbnb as a step up from Couchsurfing. I was mistaken in terms of how large it was, and how on the verge of being mainstream it was. I just thought it was a novelty. As I did my research, I realized that my impression was mistaken. Now if you look at the host community, the average age is 47. I think what we've seen is a process of the mainstreaming of the idea of staying in someone's home. Of home-sharing.
You almost get the sense that the hotel industry is, or at least had been, treating Airbnb with the disdain that Blockbuster treated Netflix—only to see them sneak up on them.
That's a great example, but I don't think it's accurate because I think Netflix basically put Blockbuster out of business, and I don't think Airbnb will put the hotel industry out of business. There is this beautiful Gandhi quote: ”First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." For us, it's more like we've won the credibility. They know we're not going away, and they want to figure out: How do we collaborate? How do we learn from each other? We've had most of the largest global hotel companies at our headquarters. I think the franchisee community and the hotel owner community is still in that process of fighting and ridicule, but it's moving in this direction.
Lets talk about something else for a minute. As an Airbnb host, especially if you're just renting a room and not an entire place, the host is as important to the experience as the apartment.
I agree.
A lot of it has to do with, not necessarily being a good host or a bad host, but being a good match for different types of people. There's some people who want to be left alone and there's some people who want to hang out all the time. Are you guys working on anything that can match-make personalities and hosting styles with particular guests?
Yes.
Can you speak to that?
I can't elaborate, but I can say the answer is yes. What I will say, rather than talk about the specifics of what we're doing, which I can't really talk about, but I can say more broadly is I think we as a company really admire companies that have done the early stages of matching: Spotify, Amazon, Okcupid, Netflix.
Yeah.
I think we have a really interesting opportunity as a travel company for the full travel experience, but specifically on accommodations, because there's so many variables, and frankly with so many listings now, the ability for us to match over time takes away the paradox of choice as well. The paradox of choice is a basic premise that says the more choice you have, the more paralyzed you could be. You don't know what's the right choice.
Yeah, that's the Barry Schwartz book.
I love him. I've written a few books and he's written quotes on my books, and I'm a big fan of his. I'm a big fan of matching. When I first joined Airbnb, that was the first thing I said to Brian Chesky. The good news is that I think what you'll see in 2016 is progressively us getting better and better at that, but I can't tell you the specifics.
It's not even matching I think as much as dealing with what happens when you have tens of thousands of listings in one city.
Yeah, exactly.
There are problems that come with that situation that could be fixed with algorithms. One of which is making it less intimidating for new hosts because they're at the bottom of the pile and aren't getting any inquiries. The question then becomes: How do you get people started?
That's right. We're smart about that. That's a very important point.
Hugely important. Because a lot of people think: "I don't have any reviews, nobody's going to book me." How do you get them that first booking? Hugely important. Especially when you want to make the experience good for a new host, which you obviously do. It's making sure that supply and demand are evenly dispersed. If the top listings are the top listings for everybody, it's the peak of the iceberg and the rest are buried, when those could be totally great for different people.
Right.
The way I visualize this, as I'm sure you guys do, is leveling that iceberg and making it flat, so everybody finds the match for them. The best search results for me may not be the best search results for you. Which brings up a question: Right now if I type in New York and you type in New York, do we get the same thing, or is there any change?
That's a great question. I'm not on the technical product team, so I can't tell you at this very moment. But in the future, for sure, you will get different results. I can say for sure that's the direction we're going. The matching around that will be around the host and guest connection, but also the guest preferences in terms of the kind of place they like.
I almost imagine at some point, if you haven't already, a questionnaire. Like those used by some of the fashion direct-sales startups that ask you about style and fit before showing you items they think you'll like. Is that specifically something you guys are planning?
No comment.
You can hire me if you want. Let's switch gears for a minute. How many hosts would you say you've met or spoken to, since you've been at Airbnb?
I put my email address out there in videos and in Airbnb Open last year. I know that on my Hospitality Moments of Truth Tour I went to twenty cities and then an additional five. That was about 8,000 hosts. But I think if you include all of the hosts I've met from all of these events, as well as all the ones I've done emails with, I'd say it's probably verging on between 25,000 and 50,000 hosts, which is not a lot.
That is a lot.
I mean, it's a lot. I actually think there's nobody in the company who has... Let me say this, on the E staff, which is our senior leadership team, absolutely everybody knows Chip is the voice of the host. Everybody takes that to heart. Partly because they know when something goes wrong, I'm usually the one that actually gets the emails.
You probably got one about my place last week.
Did you send it to me?
No. It was dealt with perfectly, by the way.
If it's not dealt with perfectly, then that's usually when I hear of it.
So you're dealing with thousands of hosts. At some point you probably hear commonalities about people's anxieties, or worries, or concerns. What do you hear bubbling up again and again as something you still feel needs to be addressed for hosts?
I think how we honor, appreciate, and support our best hosts. I would say another one is one we've addressed at this conference, which is vetting our guests. It's not so much the security side exactly, it's not like you have an axe murderer. It's more like, tell us more about yourself before you book a room: Picture, name. Just give us some more verification. That's definitely a high priority for us. We have to have more information.
Absolutely. One of the frustrations I had as a host was when you guys made it much easier for guests to send the same message to multiple hosts at once.
Yeah.
Because messages instantly become depersonalized, and you get the feeling they're not reading your listing. You can see in the keynotes at this conference when speakers talk about guests reading a listing's rules, people in the audience applauded.
Right.
Because that's a huge determinant of a good stay. Not just that they take their shoes off at the door because they're supposed to, but that they know what to expect.
Right.
I think a successful Airbnb experience is all about managing expectations.
Disappointment equals not meeting expectations.
Exactly. I live in a neighborhood that's a rapidly gentrifying part of Brooklyn and a lot of people really want to stay here and love the area. But I had a guest recently from the Midwest who left a review saying it was gritty and dirty when other people would be like it's hip and cool. Eye of the beholder here.
Right.
That person maybe wasn't the best guest for this space, but somebody else would have given it a five-star rating.
I did a class yesterday for about 1,000 people. One of the tips I highly recommend for people is to put it in the first paragraph: "Some people find my neighborhood to be hip and cool. This is a neighborhood that's not for everyone, but some people find it their favorite neighborhood in New York." By saying it in the first paragraph, you create an editing function for the right people to find you. And here's the other option. Put in your captions.
Yeah?
People read photo captions more than they actually read the listing. Have three pictures of the neighborhood and say what I just said.
You guys are kind of increasing your focus on business travelers. I think in the past you guys have mentioned perhaps branching into other use-case classifications, such as families or a romantic trips. How do you see those panning out in the future?
With the idea of a group of travelers who have some common and similar interests, business travel is a great one for us to try out. Vacation travel is what we already are. I would say that families are already a use-case for us. I think we could actually get to a place where we had some listings that were more specifically the family-friendly listings. Romantic I love, and yet it's challenging, because what one couple might think is romantic another couple might think is awful. It may be hard to get to that use-case, because the choice and needs are so broad. But business travel is a great one. Business travel, no matter who you are or who you vote for for president, or what your point of view is on a variety of things, business travelers have some basic things they need. They have to have Wi-Fi for sure. And in certain cases, if you have hair and you're typically a woman, you actually want a hair dryer. It doesn't matter your age—there's a variety of things that are the basics we expect for a business travel-ready list.
One of things I always thought would be really cool for Airbnb to do is to offer something for business and the type of solo travelers who in the past may have gone to a hostel for a social experience. So giving them a way to meet other travelers would be interesting. Airbnb knows when you're in a city, and they know who else is there, and creating some social opportunities or networking opportunities seems like a natural possibility.
Agreed.
No more on that? What Airbnb feels like to me is... It could become almost an endless series of location-specific social networks.
Yeah, I think the idea that it can be both a social network and a way to get to know the city, and to get to know the locals, that's a triumvirate. Be able to get to know a city or a neighborhood, or a specific place that's a cool place, get to know other travelers, especially if you can meet travelers that have similar interests, and then get to meet locals. If you can do all three of those, I think that's a value proposition that makes us quite different than a hotel.
Absolutely. I'm the kind of person who would have preferred to stay at a hostel over a hotel in the pre-Airbnb days, just because if I'm traveling alone I want to meet people.
Yeah. And there are a lot of great hostels.
Not to bash hostels.
Yeah, I just drove by the Generator hostel here. It's a great new chain of hip hostels. If there's a message here, whether it's through hostels or through Airbnb, it's just that historically—and again I'm saying this as a hotelier—the hotel industry has been a laggard as opposed to being on the leading edge of lifestyle change. Part of that is because the industry is so split. You've got the franchiser, the franchisee, you've got the management company. A Marriott hotel might not be Marriott-managed, and it's not usually owned by Marriott. So the process of actually making change is really hard for those companies. I think that's one of the opportunities that Airbnb or boutique hotels or boutique hostels have been able to take advantage of.
What I find super interesting about Airbnb as opposed to hotels is that when you're dealing with hotels, the motivation for the hotel is very simple. It's to make money.
It's transactional.
Yes. Whereas the benefit to the Airbnb host may be one of numerous things that are not money. It could be companionship, it could be experience, it could be memories.
I should have you onstage with me this afternoon. I'm MCing the whole afternoon and this afternoon's segment is actually my favorite. It's focused on delighting guests, but it's really the idea of transformational travel. A person's travel is meant to be a moving experience. The question is how do we actually get really good at helping to move our guests. I think with the hotel industry, their idea of moving the guest is how do you move them in and out in an assembly line way that doesn't feel like an assembly line. Does that make sense?
Yeah
That's what a hotel is. There's an occupancy question. You've got to get people in and out, and clean in between. The hotel industry is like that and will always be like that because that's actually how it's built. Home-sharing is built in so many different ways. Yes, there are home-sharing examples that are just like that, and it's going to be hard for those to feel like much more than a transaction. But most of the home-sharing world is not that.
Okay. One last question. You're the person who's there when things go wrong, and there's a lot written about what can go wrong with Airbnb, and to it seems like a very uniquely difficult thing to deal with because there's so many million iterations of what could occur. I wonder how much of Airbnb's crisis management is left to individual human judgment and how much is left to a laid-out process. What does the process actually look like when Airbnb deals with a problem?
That's a great question. I would say it's really both. There's absolutely an overlay that defines what we are seeing within various countries as incidences. So we can actually have a sense that in Japan, this is what tends to be the type of problem that occurs, and that's very different from what happens in India. So then we can actually train the trust and safety staff based upon what part of the world they're in. We have about 250 people in trust and safety exclusively, that's all they do is trust and safety. There's two parts of trust and safety. One is the part of preemptive, making sure we have good actors as guests and hosts on the platform. And there's the reactive, which is when something goes wrong. A lot of it is data-driven, but the training piece is always going to come from a human element.
Are you able to use data now to some degree to predict who or how things are going to go wrong?
I don't think we can predict who or how, but we can predict certainly when it comes to understanding who's best suited to the platform for host and guest, for sure.
So some people exhibit a couple tickers that suggest high likelihood that they will not be a good fit for Airbnb in a lot of ways?
Yes, that's accurate.
Things can go wrong in a truly objectively wrong sense. But then there's some situations where it's simple, like cultural misunderstandings.
Yeah.
Like you do something that may be rude in one country and not realize it. Does that ever come up in how you deal with or educate people on how to act in different scenarios and countries?
Yeah, I actually think that's a very interesting thing for us to do in the long term. And the long term for our company could be two years from now. How do we create a cultural translator? How do we create something that helps people to understand everything from a host understanding what a Mexican guest visiting Norway wants for breakfast, to frankly even something as simple as the way to say hello to the person in their language. I think it's a great opportunity.
Agreed.
I think it's the future. What's amazing is how many wonderful things we have in the future still that we could do that makes the platform even more valuable to the host and the guest. And frankly that's the part that I love. I'll just finish on this: I just think at the end of the day if we do our job right, we're actually helping to create a better cultural bridge, and more trust in the world. As much as that sounds a little too aspirational and new-age, there's no doubt about it. That's part of what we do well.
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