(2023-12-05) Airbnb Wants to Feel Young Again

Airbnb Wants to Feel Young Again. Booking Holdings and Airbnb have long resembled a father-son duo of the online travel industry. Airbnb has traditionally been the cool kid of the two... But, just as people often look (and behave) more like their parents as they age, Airbnb is increasingly starting to look more like Booking. The two companies are expected to grow revenue at roughly the same rates next year—about 11%... That’s the competitive backdrop for Airbnb’s significant executive shake-up today, an “inflection point” for the company, CEO Brian Chesky wrote.

The company plans to shift current finance chief Dave Stephenson to a new role of chief business officer that will be “dedicated to our long-term growth plans” and “all aspects of our strategy to expand beyond the core” home rental business, Chesky wrote. (Airbnb also elevated Ellie Mertz to the CFO seat. She is a respected 11-year veteran of the company whom some employees had hoped to see in the job years earlier.)

Many of Chesky’s past bold bets trying to expand Airbnb’s business have been disappointments. He launched “experiences”—local tours or photo shoots—in 2016, bought a luxury rental service in 2017 and purchased hotel booking app HotelTonight in 2019. None of those have proved to be big contributors to Airbnb’s revenue. (He had some wackier ideas, too, like dreaming up an Airbnb airline, which never took off.) During the pandemic and ahead of its IPO, Chesky turned the company’s focus toward its core home rental business. “We’re now ready to turn the corner,” he wrote Tuesday. cf (2023-09-09) Itamar Gilad On Linkedin Why Did Airbnb Kill Product Management

To Chesky, this is personal. “The biggest strength I have as a CEO is not driving profitability, even though we’ve done a really good job,” he said on an analyst call last month. “I think it is literally inventing new products and services.” It’s worth watching if Airbnb can invent its way back to high growth.