Airbnb celebrates its success and rolls out immersive travel future
Homestay hosts, the first ever Airbnb guest and travel app’s staff mark eight years of success and watch as founders unveil upgrade that helps tourists connect with locals on their trips
It’s funny how things turn out. I’m in a San Francisco living room tucking into a Thanksgiving dinner with a Taiwanese-American family. There’s turkey with all the trimmings and banana cream pie for dessert. I only arrived a few hours ago but already I feel at home.
Perhaps I should explain ...
THE ORPHEUM THEATRE in downtown Los Angeles opened its doors in 1926. Judy Garland once performed at the Vaudeville venue and Little Richard, Aretha Franklin and Stevie Wonder all wowed the venue’s audiences in the 1960s. This November weekend, the Beaux Arts-style building is hosting the 2016 Airbnb Open and I’m in town to see what all the fuss is about.
Before the morning rush hour kicks in, the streets near the theatre have an edgy feel. Dishevelled characters push their possessions around in shopping trolleys, pausing every so often to ask passers-by for a dollar or two. The fact that a bed and breakfast convention is taking place in a neighbourhood where so many are homeless is not without a certain irony.
Amol Surve will be the answer to a television quiz question one day. In 2007, the design researcher from India needed somewhere cheap to stay while he was in San Francisco for a conference. Unwittingly, he became the very first person to book accommodation with Airbnb after he stumbled on a website called airbedandbreakfast.com, which offered an inflatable mattress on a living room floor for US$80 a night.