Mark Simpson reacts to Kara Swisher's interview with Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky, focusing on Chesky's response to questions about hosts pushing guests to book directly. Simpson argues Chesky downplayed the issue and offers hosts concrete tactics to build trust and capture direct bookings.
Welcome to the Boostly podcast. My name is Mark Simpson and I give hosts just like you the tools, the tactics, the training, and most importantly, the confidence to get your own direct bookings and where you don't have to rely on Airbnb for bookings. And in today's episode, I'm going to be reacting to a recent podcast interview with Mr. Brian Chesky where he was asked about the book Direct Movement.
Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the T is loose leaf making up those rhymes. Don't write it, just do it loosely. If you want my respect, you're better. But direct. Here are the words in the podcast. That's what comes next.
Now, the podcast that we are talking about, it is the. The podcast is Sway, and the episode was called Airbnb has a Hate Group Problem Too. Now, I was talking about the. The riots, the. The terrorist action up in Washington, D.C. at the start of January 2021, where these hooligans stormed the capital and did all sort of things. And obviously the. They were traveling from all over America and they were staying in Airbnbs. That is what the episode started off as. The. The interview was really good, really pinned Brian Chesky on a couple of points. But one thing that really caught my eye was when he was specifically asked about the book Direct Movements. Let me just play this to you now.
One of the things that hosts can list their. Their homes on other services like vrbo, were asking potential guests to go to Craigslist to book there for a cheaper rate. Are you worried about that issue of people going off your platform or finding other ways? How do you combat that?
Now, really interesting how he responds to this. You can tell that he was a little bit perplexed to get asked this question. I'm sure that this is maybe the first time he's ever heard the word book direct. But let's just listen to his answer.
Not too worried about it, because we don't think it's happening very frequently. And the way to combat that primarily is to make a service so good that they don't have a reason to take it offline. For example, you take it on Craigslist, your home gets trashed, you might not be insured. You do on Airbnb, you have a million dollars coverage.
Yeah, there is no.
You hear that? That is very good market in Spiel. The Airbnb booking and VRBO and all these companies have used from day one. So the, the question that she asked was obviously guests are taking it off platform, off platforms and going to things like Craigslist. She didn't mention specifically about websites or a pms, but there are fantastic tools out there. So this doesn't happen. Now what he's doing here is that he is just playing the. The rhetoric that so many OTAs have done over the years is that, listen, book with us, host, let book with us because then your property is safe. Guests book with us because then you know that your booking is genuine. Now this is the trust issue. This is why it's so important that you utilize services like iprac, that you have things like Super Hog and powering you behind the scenes that do the guest verification and have good insurance. Like, again, like Super Hug the iprac. You've got to use these tools out there and then you've got to talk about it on your website, in your social medias, on your emails. You've got to explain to the hosts. So explain to the guests that when they book direct, they are secure. You know you're protecting you and you're protecting them. This is the marketing material that Airbnb are pushing out all day long, booking.com are pushing out all day long and this is why they're saying book via their platform. So this is really key insight when it comes to marketing and this gives you everything that you need to know and what you need to talk about the safety aspect, the trust aspect. So look at your website. What can you be doing today to portray the act of confidence and trust in your business? If you get that right, your direct bookings will grow and grow and grow. And as always, I will be there to give you more help, tip and advice. So. So again, massive thank you to our sponsor for today, Zebu. We really do appreciate it, all the help and support that you have given us over the years. And thank you for making this podcast one of the best out there and thank you for watching. If this is the first time that you have tuned into one of our podcasts, boostly.co.uk podcast, we've got a brand new website now, please do go check it out and if this is the first time that you have discovered this, please do hit the like button. Go and subscribe and go and check out the full back catalog. We've got over 150 episodes. The YouTube channel is one of the biggest in the world of hospitality. The blog is fantastic and it's got all the tools and tactics and the tips and the advice that you need to increase your dairy bookings for now. Thank you very much for tuning in, and I shall be back tomorrow for another lesson.
Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee like Bruce Lee? Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.
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