Airbnb : The Journey of a Unicorn Start-Up to a Travel Giant by Taylor's University

All it took was a simple air mattress to spark a rise of this Unicorn start-up to a Travel Giant!

A Dive into the Reflection Pool…
Airbnb's real data is the perfect jumpstart for the management to keep in sight the users who have put a pin in travelling plans for far too long. Explore real data of over 250k listings in the 10 cities spread over 6 continents that make up the world's most popular travel destinations, along with a staggering 5 mil reviews on 182k hosts for 13 historical years.
A rapid rise in demand and popularity maintained until the unprecedented Covid-19 global pandemic that left a gross oversupply in available listings. In the midst of revising business strategies, Airbnb should not neglect to target marketing efforts on the top listings trends - most involving romantic private getaways in Paris, and suited-up business meetings in New York City. Hosts can sure feel the love in The City Of Love, and face the hustle and bustle of lodging preparations in The City That Never Sleeps!

Safely Riding the Steep Roller Coaster of Visitor Numbers…
A slow start to a heart-stopping fall - Airbnb can it bear it all! Revolving around a fairly new concept and vision and plagued with issues concerning tight conflicting regulations and operations, Airbnb reached never-seen-before new heights once they found their footing. Even as many listings were not instant bookable, Airbnb held on tight to its market share by being a pioneer in reinventions such as smart instant book filters.

With Great Honour Comes Great Responsibility…
The journey to bear the mark of a great host is far from easy. Overall score remained incredibly high, but with slight inconsistencies during years 2011-2016 and 2019-2020. One contributing factor is that less than a quarter of hosts meet the strict criteria, including host response time, to qualify as superhosts. These sum up to lower quality of stays, and in turn lower than average ratings. Another factor behind the instability at the beginning is the length of time Airbnb spent ironing out rulings and finding its place on the global map. With new and changing host rulings to improve scores, and thus changing global regulatory responses, it was not until 2020 that most cities found themselves converging to a position of moderately strict regulations.

More Hits than Misses… and Counting!
Cape Town, Paris, and Bangkok, in increasing order of severity, suffered a deterioration in average scores in the past decade, whereas Rome in particular made leaps and bounds in betterments. Airbnb can offer support and guidance to the hosts located at newer locations lacking in reviews - precious resources to gain experiences and improve in time.

The Future of the Travel Unicorn…
Airbnb is on the right track to greatness and can soon normalise the notion that anyone can belong anywhere!

Data source :
Airbnb Listings & Reviews.
Public Domain license at Maven Analytics (https://www.mavenanalytics.io/data-playground), sourced from Inside Airbnb with Multiple Table, 5,652,855 records, and 36 attributes.