Airbnb adds a mentorship program to help list homes

Airbnb users who are still unsure whether or not to list their apartment or house for rent on the site can now get help from some of the site’s most experienced advertisers.

Starting this week, Airbnb will connect potential new hosts with “Superhosts” who will provide them with step-by-step instructions on how to set up their listing to ensure it is desirable and clickable for travelers. The Host Mentoring Program is one of many new setup features the company revealed in its Winter 2022 release aimed at encouraging even more users to take the leap to become a Host and reducing anxieties around would-be assholes trashing their house.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared details of the new product with Gizmodo and a handful of other reporters in New York on Tuesday. The Superhost Referral feature will allow aspiring hosts to match with experienced Airbnb veterans in their relative geographic region. Once connected, the couple can communicate via Airbnb text or audio chat. Users can also choose to start a Zoom video call with their Superhost in the Airbnb app even if neither user has a Zoom account themselves.

Chesky, accompanied on stage by his eager golden retriever, demonstrated the tool in real time. During his demo, the CEO connected via Zoom to a San Francisco-based Superhost who was able to remotely view his screen as he filled in various categories required to list a unit. The Superhost gave Chesky tips on what types of photos to include, unit naming conventions, and do’s and don’ts to make the listing unique for users. Tip: Baking homemade cookies for guests is usually a plus.

New hosts can now also opt to choose an “experienced guest,” who has at least three previous Airbnb stays and a good standing to be their first guest. The Superhost can then guide the rookie host through the entirety of that first rental and answer any questions that may come up along the way. The aim with both of these new features is to ease potentially hesitant hosts into the hosting process and minimize the possibility their experience could end in a potential account ending disaster. On that same note, the company said it’s expanding its identity verification tools to include all booking guests in its 35 most traveled countries (representing around 90% of reservations). Airbnb hopes to boost that up to 100% of its guests by Spring 2023, which they hope will add another layer of assurances to convince users to become hosts.

Superhosts have an incentive to help out the newbies too. Airbnb told Gizmodo the Superhosts will receive a one-time cash reward reward for helping a host. To start, the company says it’s launching the mentor program with 1,500 Superhosts in over 80 countries.

“Today, just like during the Great Recession in 2008, people are especially interested in earning extra income through hosting,” Chesky said. “That’s why we’re introducing an easy way for millions of people to Airbnb their homes. With Airbnb Setup, every new Host can get free, one-to-one guidance from a Superhost from their first question through their first reservation.”

Airbnb also announced expansions to its“categories“Search functionality launched earlier this year. Rather than searching for specific vacation spots by name or location, the categories feature encourages users to browse listings based on their related experiences or specific aesthetic. The previous categories included geographical descriptors like “national parks” or “deserts” or more specialized and original filters like “design”.

This week, Airbnb added six new categories. One of these categories, dubbed ‘Adapted’, attempts to list wheelchair accessible units. To do this, Airbnb says it partners with a third-party service that will create 3D scans of a host’s unit. This 3D scan will produce a floor plan that the user can then view on the app.

These new ways of thinking about search and discovery aren’t just incremental product changes. Chesky said the categories tool, which focuses more on experiences than on specific places or traditional destinations, could help solve some problems. complaints users that there is an insufficient supply of getaway ads available.

“The problem [with a traditional search box] is you have to think of somewhere to type,” Chesky said. “We are in 100,000 cities. Most people can’t think of typing somewhere they’ve never been.

Alternatively, through the categories feature, Chesky said Airbnb tries to direct users to areas where there is already plenty of supply. It means potentially enticing winter holiday travelers who might otherwise think of heading to New York to consider a single room in a castle somewhere in Ireland instead. In theory, this practice could allow more hosts in various regions to list their units without guests all jostling for a few popular travel destinations.

“I don’t think overtourism means too many tourists around the world are traveling,” Chesky added. “I think tourism is too many people going to the same place at the same time.”

Correction 11/16/2022 09:12 ET: A previous version of this article stated that Superhosts would receive a percentage of a list to help hosts. An Airbnb spokesperson clarified that Superhosts will instead receive a “one-time cash reward.”