Skift Take
Airbnb has lot on its plate: suspensions in multiple jurisdictions, incessant regulatory hurdles and more. But when its comes to business focus, the company is growing and paying more keen attention to how it serves the hosts on its platform.
What can we expect from Airbnb? While there's no timeframe, a marketplace is in the works where hosts might pay to contract cleaning services and the company may implement tax-inclusive pricing in places where it doesn't do so already.
These were the main themes that emerged from the conversation between Airbnb's global head of hosting, Catherine Powell, and Skift founder and CEO Rafat Ali at the Future of Lodging Forum 2023 in London on Wednesday.
Powell provided more detail about Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky's statement in February that Airbnb sees an opportunity in charging hosts for certain services, in addition to offering free products. In March, Skift reported on Airbnb's delays and paused payments to hosts. At the time Airbnb claimed that ou