Airbnb quietly reopens platform to new Experience listings

Without fanfare or notice often dedicated to its new features, Airbnb has quietly given hosts the option to offer new Experiences for the first time since pausing the submission of new offerings back in April 2023 - and four months ahead of the prior plan to bring them back in 2025.

The decision is making waves among industry leaders on LinkedIn, after some spotted the update on the Airbnb site.

“Oh my gosh... did Airbnb open Experiences again to new hosts? By the looks of their website... yes!” wrote Mitch Bach, CEO and co-founder of TripSchool, which runs educational programs for tour operators and guides.

While Airbnb did not announce the re-launch, the company confirmed the option went live Tuesday in a statement shared with PhocusWire. The short-term rental giant said it is “delighted” to be reopening for submissions for experiences,.

“Our aim is to provide guests with a diverse, unique selection of experiences that authentically reflect the culture and community of cities around the world,” the company said. “As Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky mentioned in our latest earnings call, we’re excited about the future of Experiences and look forward to sharing more soon.”

Airbnb’s history with Experiences

Airbnb’s Experiences track has been a rocky road over the last few years, to say the least.

Back in 2022, Chesky had called experiences a "major investment" area for the company - yet it was a year later that Airbnb paused allowing new experiences on the site.

In May this year the company alerted about 5,000 tour and experience operators that their offerings were being removed from the platform because they did not meet the company's standards. That news came one month after Airbnb launched its "Icons" products - what Chesky described as a "new category of extraordinary experiences" that in some cases also include a stay.

Then in August while sharing the company's Q2 financial results, Chesky said Experiences would come back in 2025 as part of the company's expansion beyond stays.

“Next year, we're going to begin to expand Airbnb truly beyond a core business,” Chesky said. “And we're going to relaunch Experiences.”

At the time Chesky outlined some of the key factors for Experiences moving forward - including that they need to be affordable, they need to be exclusive to Airbnb and they need to be marketed with videos. And he said, "... we're going to completely reimagine our search and discovery engine to cross-sell experiences after you book a home." 

According to the new information posted on the site about Experiences, Airbnb is offering a dashboard with tools for hosts to manage payments and scheduling, and the company also provides $1 million in liability insurance for host operators. Among the criteria for listing, Airbnb notes submissions "must demonstrate expertise, insider access and connection." 

Travel industry leaders react

Tuesday’s move resulted in fairly uniform surprise among those who shared their opinions.

Madison Rifkin, CEO and founder of Mount, a PhocusWire Hot 25 Travel Startup for 2023, called the move a surprise given Chesky’s typical “go-big-or-go-bigger” announcement tactic.

“To me, this signals uncertainty—they're still figuring out what Experiences should be or could evolve into,” said Rifkin. “I don't think Airbnb is going down the typical path of just selling experience tickets through their platform. When they do make a big announcement, I expect it to look completely different from anything we currently see in the industry.”

Brennen Bliss, CEO of travel marketing agency Propellic, weighed in, too, calling the move “wild” in the comments section of Bach’s LinkedIn post. “This is the most unbelievable product launch, revocation, relaunch, re-cancellation, and then launch I've ever seen.”

“Customers just hadn’t had enough Experiences whiplash yet,” wrote Benjamin Rhatigan, co-founder and strategy director of Arrival Projects, a travel marketing and branding agency.

Bach replied, voicing sympathy for hosts. “Forget the customers the poor guides and operators — one day no new applications, then their experience is canceled then next month they can apply again… it’s like being back on the middle school playground not knowing whether you’re in or out with the cool kids.”

To me, this signals uncertainty—they're still figuring out what Experiences should be or could evolve into.

Madison Rifkin, Mount

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Potential for success?

Travel industry leaders have been vocal about Airbnb’s plans to relaunch Experiences - and whether it would be successful. Their predictions when PhocusWire reached out last month were mixed.

Bach said Airbnb will find “once again” that creating an experiences platform is more difficult than building a short-term rental company.

“I find it surprising that they claim their lack of success was due to high costs and lack of exclusivity and video content, when I see other experiences platforms thriving by comparison, with higher price points and open connectivity,” said Bach.

At the time, Bach said he hoped the new version of Experiences addresses “real problems” such as product design, limited supplier support, poor training and API connectivity.

Others, like Christian Watts, CEO of Magpie, said the company could see success. “Airbnb upset a lot of suppliers with a cull earlier this summer. But it's Airbnb,” wrote Watts. “Operators will line up again to get their products loaded up. It's all a bit vague right now, but I think they can make something work here.”

And Douglas Quinby, co-founder and CEO of Arival, a travel experiences support firm, told PhocusWire Wednesday upon the news of the reopening that while Airbnb Experiences has held "tremendous promise" the company has struggled.

"Tours, activities and experiences are the best part of travel, but Airbnb has also learned that it’s a really hard part of travel to scale without mass tours and attraction products," he said.

The company, he continued, is working on how to scale experiences' long tail with a small but growing team focused on the issue. 

"If – or more likely when – they figure out how to deliver personal, unique experiences at scale, it could be magical," said Quinby. "Until then, this is much ado about not much, and the travel industry could chill out and not do backflips and cartwheels every time Airbnb adds a page, field or widget."