Agents divided on Airbnd's latest offering

AGENTS are divided on
whether Airbnb’s new
offering, Trips, is a threat
or an opportunity for them,
according to a recent poll on
eTNW.
Half of the respondents
said they considered Trips to
be a threat to the industry
as more travellers turned to
online bookings. The other half
saw it as an opportunity: 29%
believed travellers were likely to
return to travel agents after a
bad online booking experience
and 21% said Trips was an
opportunity to supplement the
industry.
Trips allows travellers to
build their own itineraries that
comprise niche experiences
with local experts, guided audio
tours, guidebooks and meetups
with fellow Airbnb users.
Travellers can also manage
their travel arrangements using
Trips Itinerary and soon Airbnb
plans to offer flight bookings.
Sean Hough, md of Pentravel,
says Trips will add to the
industry rather than take
away from it. Selling clients
interesting local experiences is
something the industry does
not do enough of, he says.
“For London maybe we would
sell some theatre tickets, for
Paris we’d sell an Eiffel Tower
excursion, but I don’t think
we’re doing this very well at the
moment at all.”
There is a growing market
of experiential travellers who
are looking for something
short and sharp to fill their
limited travel time, says
Andrew Stark, md of Flight
Centre Travel Group. He says
the group doesn’t see Trips
as a threat as the group
focuses on marketing these
experiences pre- or post-trip to
not only leisure, but corporate
travellers.
Currently, Trips is only
available in 12 cities, including
Cape Town and Nairobi. The
other cities are Los Angeles,
San Francisco, Miami, Detroit,
Havana, London, Paris,
Florence, Tokyo and Seoul.
It plans to include 39 more
cities.