The Sharing Economy and Marketing Strategy of Airbnb

The Sharing Economy and Marketing Strategy of AirBnB  

The sharing economy refers to the recent phenomenon whereby large segments of the population are enabled to collaboratively make use of under utilised assets via fee-based sharing (Zervas et al., 2015). AirBnb is the quintessential example of the emergence of the sharing economy. AirBnb has created a unique platform for: the hosts, who can monetize their vacant space and the consumer, who wants more authentic experience than a hotel. How three guys went from renting mattresses to a $10bn company in 2014 (Refer Exhibit 1). Since AirBnb was valued at $10bn in 2014, the company has since more than tripled to $30bn in 2017 (Refer Exhibit 2). AirBnb a decade old company is valued far more than the Hilton hotels which is in market since 1919. In 2017, AirBnb had more listings worldwide than top five hotel’s brand combined (Business Insider, 2017 ).  With over 4 million Airbnb listings worldwide, 65000 listing cities, 191+ listing countries and over 260 million guest arrivals of all time has practically become the market leader for travel accommodation.

Airbnb’s rise has been meteoric and much of it is down to its unconventional yet inspirationally innovative marketing strategies. It's not due to bloated marketing budgets, but a result of hard work, ingenuity and a lot of panache. From its early days, the founders had realized the importance of good

Exhibit 1: How AirBnb started?

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(Vital, 2014)

Exhibit 2: Market valuation of various hotel groups

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Source: https://knowledge-leader.colliers.com/jon-fletcher/airbnb-colorado-ski-market/

Exhibit 3: Fast facts

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Source: (Atairbnb, 2018) https://press.atairbnb.com/fast-facts/