The Concept Of Home In The Hospitality Industry: An Analysis Of Airbnb’s Approach

Background of Airbnb

The present report aims to analyze the trend in the hospitality industry and recommend ways for the chosen company – Airbnb – to incorporate these trends. The paper will provide a background of the chosen company highlighting its target market, location and amenities. Further, the report will briefly elaborate the concept of home and the ways the hospitality industry has used this concept. This section will include the intangible aspects of the industry including the experiences, feelings, warmth, togetherness and connection provided to the customers.

In addition to that, the report will demonstrate the way accommodation providers are using the home concept to attract customers. Next, the report will provide recommendations for the chosen company to use the concept of home. The report will try to provide innovative suggestions for the company to use and highlight the services the company is already providing and the ways it could be bettered.

Background of Airbnb

Based in San Francisco, United States, Airbnb is an online hospitality service provider that offers different lodging rentals on short-term basis and hosts tourism and music events. The company is unique in its services as an accommodation provider because it does not own, like other accommodation businesses, any real estate property (Airbnb.co.in 2018). It earns revenues through bookings in the form of service fees.  Customers can access Airbnb through its own website or through the mobile applications. Registering and creating an account does not cost anything for the users however; they need to provide a valid name, email ID, photograph, telephone number and payment information prior to booking (Airbnb.co.in 2018). Customers can login to the app or the website to search for various types of lodging by using filters such as type, dates, price and location.

The target demographic of Airbnb is mostly travelers who look for comfortable, spacious and yet affordable and functional places to stay. The target market of the company could be demarcated into two segments – the travelers and the hosts. The travelers are the ones who prefer traveling to distant places without costing heavily on their budget. Further, there are also the kinds of travelers who wish to relax and enjoy their tour within their tight budget. The hosts on the other hand, include those who rent out their homes to the travelers.

Some hosts want to earn good money by renting their places while others are interested in meeting new people. Both these target segments are crucial to Airbnb as these constitute the central part of the business. Several companies have struggled to focus on multiple target demographics but with Airbnb, it is otherwise. The company has been able to deal effectively with both the target markets by following a business structure where both the segments complement each other.

The concept of home

Home as a concept has different connotations for different people. Some consider it a place to live in while some refer to it as a comforting place where they could live freely. Home is also referred to the environment and at times, a state of mind. However, the perfect definition of home is a place where families live together either temporarily or as permanent residents. The fundamental aspect of home is the hospitality that is associated with it. Outsiders, who could be friends, relatives, or other acquaintances, are welcomed in home with warmth and friendliness.

The Concept of Home

They could often be heard saying, “It feels like our own home” or “This place feels just like home”, which suggests that they have received the kind of hospitality that they enjoy at their own home. It also includes the kind of food they enjoy at a different place away from their homes, the respect and dignity they receive, which makes them feel at home. Home is where both the psychological and physiological needs of the people are met. The accommodation providers explore these aspects of home; infuse these in the products, and services it provide to the customers. The visitors feel connected to home in different accommodation through the services such as catering, housekeeping, behavior of the employees and security.

Outsiders often enjoy homely experience in countries other than their own mainly because of the presence of accommodations that cater to specific needs of the people. The big chain of hotels operating in different parts of the world with headquarters based in home country try to provide homely experience to travelers coming from their own country. Here, the concept of home could be understood in terms of environment. The hotels try to attract customers by exploiting their emotional connection with home. Numerous hotels and other accommodation providers use the concept of home in their tag lines, their promotional strategies including advertisements to attract customers

Use of the concept by accommodation providers

As it is clear from the above discussion, the concept of home has become a sensational trend for accommodation providers who do not miss a chance to associate this concept with their business. Zaitseva, Goncharova and Androsenko (2016) observe that hotels today are redefining the hospitality industry by inching closer and closer to the idea of ‘home’. They are adopting advanced technologies and are willing to spend that extra penny to provide the best home experience to their guests.

Many hotels are now redesigning their rooms to make it look more like home. With the use of advanced technology, accommodation providers are able to gather information about the interests and likings of the customers. Information systems are one of the most commonly used technologies by hotels to learn about the customers. It typically includes the computerized systems that gather data constantly for use of both internal and external operations. The transaction processing system (TPS) is one of the most effective technologies used by hotels (Economist.com 2018).

With the help of this technology, hotels are able to collect, retrieve and modify transactional data of the customers. This allows the hotel management to provide options that are more flexible to the customers the next time they come to stay. This technology thus evident has helped hotels incorporate the concept of home more easily and effectively. By gathering data, the hotels are able to understand the perfect home experience the customer desires while booking rooms.

Instances of numerous hotels that use the home concept in the contemporary world could be given. The Atemporal-Hotelito in Lima, Peru provides customers with a homelike feeling by having front and back yards, a Mini Cooper and house bikes amongst its many services. Visitors would have all the amenities that they otherwise enjoy at home (Ren et al. 2016). The PIG at Combe in Devon, England is another fine example of hotel incorporating the concept of hotel. It offers its customers with features such as loaner willies, a fireplace and an ale pint on arrival. These features give customers the feeling that they have visited a friend’s house in a grand estate located in the countryside.

Use of the Concept by Accommodation Providers

Some accommodation providers are also coming up with the idea to have cozy rooms where guests stumble upon in the room, the same feeling, as they would stumble in their own living rooms. To give a homely touch to their rooms, accommodation providers have also started to allocate fully furnished kitchen rooms with completely stocked snacks and other items (Kim, Vogt and Knutson 2015). Further, hotels have also started to realize the importance of giving prominence to the emotions people associate with home and the beings living there including their pets. Many hotels now provide the facility for customers to bring their pets along to stay in the hotel. The Lumiere Hotel in Telluride is one such hotel where visitors are allowed to bring their pets with them.

Thus, it is evident from the above discussion that hotels today are discerning and applying innovative ways to make their hotels feel like home. The trend has seen a rise in the past decade especially after the emergence of Airbnb, which has transformed the way accommodation is provided.

Creating home experience for Airbnb

As it can be observed in the above section, Airbnb is an already established accommodation provider, which has redefined home experience for customers. The company, which made its humble beginnings just a decade back, in 2008, has reshaped the hospitality industry. Its emergence has led to a new trend in the industry where the concept of home has reached a new level. The company does not provide homelike features to visitors in its hotel rooms rather; it provides actual homes for people to accommodate. In addition, it has given people the opportunity to demonstrate their hospitality skills by welcoming strangers as guests and let them stay at their homes.

However, there is a lot to do for the company when it comes to providing safe and secure experience for the travelers, just like home. Many instances have been found where Airbnb stay turned out to be a nightmare for some travelers in some cities (Mao and Lyu 2017). This occurred largely due to the minimal information present about the host. In many cities, the hosts are not required to provide full details about them; no background checks are done neither any screening. In addition to that, the listing addresses are unverified, which means that if a traveler books a room, it might turn out that the property did not even exist or might be illegal. The concept of home boasted by Airbnb suffers a setback due to these reasons.

Therefore, it is important that the company reexamine its security and safety parameters because at home, the travelers do not have to worry about all these. It must make stricter policies for the hosts prior to renting a room to the travelers. Complete background check, properly listed and verified addresses should be made compulsory in case of the hosts. The company also needs to rethink about its stand on the importance given to the hosts and the guests. It could be seen from the statement of the company’s co-founder that they give more prominence to the hosts than they do to the guests, which is a bit upsetting because it is all about the guests when it comes to providing homelike experience (Washingtonpost.com 2018).

Conclusion

In the end, it must be stated that providing homelike experience in rented accommodations is not easy but achievable. The report provided a discussion on the concept of home and the way it has been used by the accommodation providers. The analysis found that the hotels have been successful in incorporating the concept but many loopholes are still there that needs to be addressed. In case of Airbnb, as it has been discussed in the report, the company has revolutionized the home concept associated with commercial accommodation. However, it too suffers from numerous problems, the most important being the safety and security of the guests. The report has also recommended ways for the company to create a more homelike experience for the guests by addressing these issues.

References:

Rent Out Your House, Apartment or Room on Airbnb (2018).

Economist.com 2018. Why Marriott is turning some of its rooms into communal apartments.

Kim, M., Vogt, C.A. and Knutson, B.J., 2015. Relationships among customer satisfaction, delight, and loyalty in the hospitality industry. Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, 39(2), pp.170-197.

Mao, Z. and Lyu, J., 2017. Why travelers use Airbnb again? An integrative approach to understanding travelers’ repurchase intention. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(9), pp.2464-2482.

Ren, L., Qiu, H., Wang, P. and Lin, P.M., 2016. Exploring customer experience with budget hotels: Dimensionality and satisfaction. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 52, pp.13-23.

Washingtonpost.com 2018. Airbnb: ‘We screwed up and we’re sorry’.

Zaitseva, N.A., Goncharova, I.V. and Androsenko, M.E., 2016. Necessity of changes in the system of hospitality industry and tourism training in terms of import substitution. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1), pp.288-293.