references
We talk to
KNOWLEDGE
Jeroen Merchiers
conference in San Francisco of Airbnb purchased three air beds and offered a bed at their home through a website. And thus Airbnb was born, a community platform for booking accommodation which has already registered more than 25 million guests. In 2011 it came to Spain, its third biggest market, says the director for eastern, northern, and southern Europe and Russia for Airbnb.
Xavier Sanchez
By his own definition, Airbnb is a community platform connecting people with a place available with others looking for a place to stay. The website acts as an intermediary, provides insurance to both parties and charges the host and traveller for use of the platform. A Boston University study concludes that for every 1% increase in Airbnb offers, a city's hotels lose 0.05% of their revenue. What is Airbnb's contribution to the sustainability of the cities where it operates? And its contribution to the tourism industry?
Some people prefer to stay in a hotel and others, or in specific situations, prefer to stay in private accommodation. We opened up the range of offers so people can decide where to stay when travelling. We believe that our offer is complementary to the others, because if you look at the numbers from the last 5 years, we are breaking record after record, and the two sectors are both winning. In addition, our business has a socioeconomic impact because we allow more people to participate in the source of wealth generated by tourism. We encourage a double decentralisation: geographical, because not only city centres are getting something out of tourism; and economic, because not only large corporations are getting something out of the revenue, allowing for a redistribution of wealth.
APRIL--JUNE 2015
Jeroen Merchiers