Chesky Notes (#1) — Let’s do a subscription

Chesky Notes is an ongoing series of (hopefully) innovative ideas about Airbnb. It’s also my fanboy hope that Brian Chesky may actually read this one day. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Amazon, Apple and Uber offer subscription services. They also have some (ok, a lot) of non-recurring revenue. Subscription services provide companies with dependable recurring revenues that can be clearly projected into the future. What would a subscription service look like if offered through Airbnb?

Uber has the best comparable offering with their Uber Pass. The Airbnb subscription could offer guests discounted prices for homes and experiences or waive guests’ booking fees. By waiving booking fees, bookings will increase and Airbnb will make more revenue through host commissions.

They could provide a discount for experiences. Or it could be a discount on experiences as part of a bundle. When a guest books a home on Airbnb, any experience booked during the same window gets discounted. That will drive more experience bookings and even more revenue on host commissions.

What kind of special access could a subscription provide to guests? Well, Airbnb always wants more inventory for homes and experiences. When a new host signs up, it’s unknown whether they will get enough traction on their listing. I don’t know how many hosts remove their listings but I bet it’s in the low double digits. That’s consequential for a business the size of Airbnb. So let’s use subscribers to buoy host engagement. For a limited time, new listings are offered to guests at significant discounts. But not just any new listings. New listings that have ‘gone stale’ and are identified as high risk for self-removal. This way, subscribers get a deal, hosts get a shot of confidence and Airbnb gets more inventory.

Brian Chesky has said the company wants to refocus on its core businesses of homes and experiences. But in the past, they have explored getting into flights. Airlines are dirt cheap so let’s say Airbnb acquires Delta. You could now throw in flight offerings to a subscription like waived baggage fees and no cost flight changes/cancelations.

For all this (excluding the non-existent airline), I would pay $120/year which is the same as I pay for Amazon Prime. What would you pay? What else would you want to see in an Airbnb subscription offering?

Disclosures: I own stock in Airbnb