Travel online this week
The senior executives of Airbnb, google travel, and agoda separately provided hints in recent days about upcoming features on their companies’ wishlists.
They revolved around research and “fintech”.
Airbnb could add more information about the host
President and CEO of Airbnb Brian Chesky told the Skift Global Forum last week that allowing guests to find additional information about the host, whether that person is a musician or has other attractive traits, could be of great interest.
“There’s a bunch of people who don’t care who the host is, and where the host might be a property management company, and who they are, it doesn’t matter as much,” Chesky said. “But there is probably a much larger group of people who want to stay in a real house. They care who the person is.
Airbnb recently expanded the categories customers can use to search for properties, including everything from lakefront homes to A-frames and abodes in surf areas.
The company’s property listings already provide host profiles, including the number of reviews on their property, when they joined Airbnb, whether they’re a superhost, and brief descriptions. But Airbnb has been criticized for not identifying whether the seemingly individual host might actually work for a corporate property manager, for example.
“What if you could stay with a musician and you could see the structured data on who that person is?” Chesky said. “So I think matching people based on their personal attributes, not just properties, is key.”
A factor weighing against Airbnb’s greater transparency about hosts is that the company is concerned that more information about hosts will lead to more guests booking directly with hosts and bypassing Airbnb.
Google could reinstate a flight price guarantee
What might loosely be called “fintech” is becoming increasingly popular in travel, and beyond. It goes from from Booking.com new payment systems and To enter lending and wealth management services to from the hopper airfare and hotel price freeze features.
Richard Holden, vice president of product management at Google Travel, told the Skift Global Forum audience on Sept. 20 that the the company plans to bring back the flight price guarantee which he tested in 2019, but abandoned during the pandemic.
“It’s something we’re looking at trying to repeat over the next year, which I think is an interesting opportunity,” Holden said. “Consumers really loved it when we experienced it before. And we do a lot of work on what I would call insights, price insights on both the hotel side and the flight side. has anything that I consider specific to the fintech we are announcing at this point.
Holden appears to make a distinction between fintech services related to banking or investing, and insurance-type features in travel such as price guarantees.
Here’s how Holden described an early iteration of the feature in 2019:
“Where we expect the price not to decrease for certain routes booked between August 13 and September 2, we will guarantee that the price will not decrease, and we will refund you the difference if that is the case. We’ll monitor the price for you and if the price drops at any time before departure we’ll send you an email letting you know once your flight has taken off – so there’s no work on your end. This feature is available for select routes departing from the United States with domestic or international destinations.
Agoda launches price freeze and cancellation insurance
Agoda CEO Omri Morgenshtern told TTG Asia that the Booking Holdings brand plans in 2023 to introduce price freeze and cancellation insurance features.
It could come from a partnership with Hopper, although none have been announced. Agoda sister company Kayak already has a Hopper partnership.
In short
Improved fee disclosure could be coming for airlines and online travel
The U.S. Department of Transportation proposes that airlines, online travel agencies, offline travel agencies, and metasearchers provide consumers with more comprehensive airline ticket price data, including service information. ancillary and cancellation fees, in the initial search results. Don’t expect that to happen anytime soon, as the technological changes required alone would be substantial. Skift
Expedia CEO says online travel has plenty of room for growth
Online travel still only controls a relatively small percentage of the global travel market, so there is plenty of room for future growth. That was the view of Expedia Group CEO Peter Kern at the Skift Global Forum – and, despite a tough competitive environment – he’s right. Skift
Oyo eyes 2023 IPO but Softbank cut valuation
Oyo, the India-based budget hotel and short-term rental operator and distributor, hopes to go public in 2023, but its boss Softbank has reportedly slashed Oyo’s valuation. Like many others, the road has been very difficult for Oyo since 2019. Skift and Skift
Get the latest travel news and exclusive research and information on hotels, airlines and tourism on Skift.com.
Comments are closed.