Airbnb Expands Into Car Rentals, Food, Hotels

The way that I look at this new offering from Airbnb, not just an expansion of travel services, right? More like Airbnb is an app store where developers can build for the existing customer base. So with everything new that you're offering, is this Brian Chesky in founder mode building it to grow it and launch it? Or are you thinking M&A and buying it? Interesting, great question. So, you know, I think you're right. What we announced today were four major services, groceries, airport pickup, luggage storage, and car rentals. But what I told everyone is just the beginning. You're gonna see dozens of more services. And what we're building is an ecosystem of services for every part of your trip, from the time you arrive to the time you leave. It is a little bit like an app store in the sense that we're working with the developers. We wanna create really great integrations. We wanna create great guidelines. And mostly, to answer your question, we're looking mostly at partnering. We're always gonna be open-minded about acquisitions, but, you know, we really wanna elevate these partners around the world. And so we have some great partners today, and we really just wanna be a great partner to them. The reason I asked it that way, Brian, is like strategically in the past, you've done some deals. I'm thinking like hotels tonight, or like even areas you've divested from. What am I thinking of? Like tickets, tour booking, right? But hotels is really interesting here. 20 markets for boutique hotels. I would look at that and say those are also markets where there are some limitations on short-term rental. But what's your pitch to the boutique hotel industry? Why Airbnb as a partner? Well, actually, it's really interesting. They're pitching us, which I was very surprised by. And why are they pitching us? Well, because many of the boutique and independent hotels, by the way, if anyone's wondering how many there are, about 60% of the hotels in the world are boutiques and independents. Boutiques and independents don't get the same deal that chain hotels get. Because chain hotels, like Hilton and Marriott, have points programs. They also are able to negotiate with Booking Expedia lower commissions than boutiques. And so what we offer is a flat 15% commission on boutiques and hotels. We've got this great merchandising for them. A lot of boutique hotels, especially in Europe, love that we have American travelers, we have younger travelers, and we're just really built custom for them. And so they ultimately want more demand of young travelers in particular, and that's what we can offer them. Changing consumer behavior, so hard. Or rather, bringing new behaviors from a consumer, so hard. Like I'm going to Paso Robles, right, in June. So if I book an Airbnb, okay, maybe it makes sense if I do the wine tasting experience with it. But with all the new things you have, how do you actually get people to make use of that? You know, it's really important that we personalize the app. So like, some people want to participate and do a cooking class, do a food tour on their vacation. Some people just want to relax and they want groceries delivered for them and they want everything taken care of. The most important thing is that we have a deeply personalized service. So with a new homepage, the app really learns about you. With AI, we can start to understand your preferences. But my vision is eventually every person that opens Airbnb sees something different than something else, based on what they love. And I over time want the app to feel like it knows you. You know, we're in the hospitality business. Our app is only as good as the sense that it feels like it knows you and is personalized to you. So even if one day we offer a hundred different categories of service experiences, we don't want to throw a hundred things at you. We want to know the five things you really care about. Since the beginning of May, I've been reading completely inconsistent reports about travel demand for the FIFA World Cup, particularly from the hotels. What is Airbnb seeing for those coming for this World Cup? I mean, we are anticipating the World Cup will be the biggest event in Airbnb history. And we're seeing a similar travel pattern as Milan Olympics. More than 60 days out for the Milan Olympics, it did not look like the demand was going to be what we anticipated. And then something unexpected happened. We had a surge of demand within 60 days of the beginning of the games, and 200,000 guests stayed in Milan and Cortina for the Olympics. So what we're seeing is people booking more last minute, but we are still seeing a huge amount of demand for the World Cup. So to answer your question, we are expecting it to be the biggest event in Airbnb history. You spoke to my colleague and friend, Natalie Leung, about Chinese AI models and a misunderstanding of how that works in practice. But I just wanted to clarify, is Airbnb still using or relying on some of those models, you know, Quen or even newer ones? And is that the open source opportunity or is that the sort of cloud-based API where you're a customer of those companies? We are not a customer of those companies. We're using a variety of different open source models. I just want to say a few things about this matter. Number one, data and privacy is most important to Airbnb. I think anyone who knows Airbnb knows we have an outstanding track record on data security and privacy. Number two, all of our data is vaulted. No company has access to our data. It is vaulted in Airbnb. Number three, the congressional committee has reached out to us. They said they have some questions. We said we want to cooperate. And so we're in direct contact and cooperation with them. I think before I answer any more questions to the public, I want to make sure that the congressional committee hears from me directly.