As to the design changes Airbnb has made to its app, there are a slew of enhancements.
Earlier this week, San Francisco-based Airbnb continued its annual tradition by unveiling its 2024 Winter Release. The marquee feature of the announcement is something Airbnb calls Co-Host Network, of which the company describes as “an easy way to find the best local hosts to manage your Airbnb.” Apart from the all-new Co-Host Network, Airbnb also boasted about building in over 50 enhancements to the Airbnb app on iOS and Android in an effort to make it “a more personalized app.”
Commemorating Airbnb Winter Releases have become traditions of my coverage in this column too. I covered the news in 2021 and in 2022.
Airbnb’s Co-Host Network, which the company characterizes as co-hosts “[providing] personalized support based on your hosting needs, from listing setup to managing bookings, and communicating with guests,” strikes me conceptually more or less as a property management company. To wit, it’s entirely plausible that a disabled person may want to share a home on Airbnb, but is incapable of doing the upkeep required to manage it. Perhaps they have a cognitive condition that makes keeping up with everything difficult, or perhaps a physical disability makes it such that it’s logistically difficult to get to and fro one’s property to not only ready it for guests, but to meet them as needs arise. Maybe it’s a confluence of factors; whatever the circumstance(s), the reality is Airbnb’s Co-Host Network can act as a de-facto accessibility feature insofar as Airbnb can connect someone—a person it says “are experienced hosts with an exceptional track record on Airbnb”—to do the grunt work in managing the property with you whilst you essentially relax and reap the benefits. Airbnb noted prospective co-hosts must have an average user rating of 4.86 or higher, adding that 73% of co-hosts are Superhosts and 84% of co-hosts manage “some of the highest-quality homes on Airbnb” known as Guest Favorites in the app and on the web.
Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky is sympathetic towards the plight hosting may have on potential new hosts. He said in part in a statement for the press release the company is “taking the work out of hosting” with the advent of the new Co-Host Network. “[You] provide the home, and we’ll provide an exceptional co-host,” he said.
As to the design changes Airbnb has made to its app, there are a slew of enhancements. They include, amongst other things, a welcome tour, search tips, recommended filters, suggested destinations, and more.
In an interview with me ahead of this week’s announcement of the Winter Release, Airbnb’s vice president of design, Teo Connor, explained design lies at the heart of “everything we do” at the company.
