My Experience on Airbnb Experience
A few months ago, Airbnb has made a big splash about re-launching “Airbnb Experience”. While I stayed at 17 different Airbnb homes over the last 7 years, I have never booked an Airbnb Experience before. So a few days ago, I went to the Airbnb app and looked for experiences near my city.
It immediately became apparent that supply is a huge bottleneck in Airbnb experiences. There were seven listings related to experiences near my city and six of them were about “paint and sip”. Well, I am no painter. But I was curious about the only experience unrelated to painting: a guided hike in a nearby city named “Cool”. I googled to find out that it’s a 50-minute drive from my place. So I went and experienced my first Airbnb experience yesterday.
Despite having a “monopoly” on guided hiking tours in nearby cities on Airbnb Experiences, the demand for such experiences appears to be spotty as well. Even though there were 10 spots available for the tour, I was the only one who signed up for the weekend hike. When I asked Richard (the host of the experience), he also confirmed that the demand is very volatile. Sometimes he would go months without any new guest. He did try to broaden his reach by trying to provide guided hike near Lake Tahoe which is a major tourist hotspot. But apparently Airbnb is yet to give him permission to operate such experience as they claimed he needs some “license” to operate such guided hikes in that area. He remains a bit confused about the exact requirements. He was also visibly annoyed by Airbnb’s “insistence” that he let AI to describe his listing. If the AI suggested some description but let him edit as he sees fit, I think that’s fine? I’m starting to notice that while many people are enchanted by the magic of AI, there are increasingly some who are a bit fatigued and almost have bit of a resistance to it. In fact, I wonder if there is a recession in the next 1-3 years, it may be a bit difficult to discern whether people are losing jobs because of AI or the recession which may lead to a more conspicuous backlash against AI.
I really liked how Seth Godin thinks about AI (I recommend the episode which I incidentally listened to it while driving to my Airbnb experience):
I think it's more interesting to talk about AI like it's the weather. You can be pro-snow or anti-snow, but if it's snowing out, it's still snowing.
It's the talking dog thing, which has two parts. Part one is if you meet a talking dog and its grammar isn't very good, don't forget that it's still a talking dog. It's still a miracle. But number two is just because a talking dog said it doesn't mean it's important.
Richard certainly seemed quite knowledgeable about the area and the history around it. It was a bit nerve wracking to hear that a mountain lion killed someone in this trail last year and there are also plenty of rattle snakes around. So, I felt a bit reassured looking at his preparedness for any potential mishaps during our hike.
It was a two-hour hike. While I did see few people in the trail, they were few and far between.
During our hike, I had a good chat with Richard about many topics. I have moved around quite a bit in the last 8 years before living in California (Ithaca, NY for a few years, Madison, WI for a year, Ottawa for a year; also spent a few months in NYC and Texas). One of the things I have noticed that may be a bit different about people in California is many of them tend to assume your politics whereas people in most other areas seemed more reserved before assuming what you believe. I wonder if it’s due to relative homogenous political beliefs around here or the ready assumption of politics of an immigrant; people just feel more comfortable of espousing their political beliefs even when they’re at “work”. Given how divisive politics has turned out to be in the US, I do lament how all encompassing politics seems in most conversations these days, even with apparent strangers.
Anyways, I do always enjoy meeting and chatting with someone who is from a very different background and has very different worldviews than I do. Of course, nobody has monopoly on truth and it is much more likely that different people contain some ounces of truth.
I would have loved to go for more of these guided hikes in areas I travel to or in nearby cities (especially at a $30 price point, it’s quite reasonably priced). But like I mentioned before, I do not see any such listing on Airbnb experience. If Airbnb is actually serious about making experiences a success, they really should focus on increasing supplies. I should also receive messages about interesting experiences from Airbnb when I travel somewhere. Now that they re-launched Airbnb experiences, I hope such low hanging fruits will be picked by management sooner rather than later.
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