I don’t know about you, but traveling for me has always been about hotels, sample-sized bottles of body wash, and crappy tasting coffee. However, Airbnb, an e-commerce firm aims to change that ( If you don’t know how the company’s service works, go click on the video below). So far, by collecting a small percentage from all the transactions that happen on its site, analysts estimate that the firm’s revenue grew from $8.4 to $52.8 million in a year, which is quite expected as the total amount of rooms booked on Airbnb grew 500% in one year, as shown in the infographic below.
source: http://gigaom.com/2012/09/23/here-comes-everybody-why-airbnb-is-so-disruptive/
However, I believe this phenomenal growth will eventually slow down as several fundamental issues facing the firm’s service become more and more visible to users. For example, a little over a year ago, a woman reported that the people who booked her house on Airbnb completely vandalized and burglarized her residency. Although, the firm has compensated the lady and dealt with the situation, the lady nevertheless claims that she will now use “nice, safe” hotel rooms next time she travels. Furthermore, a user that attempted Airbnb’s service to book an apartment in New York, ended up (after much communication) discovering that the rooms she wanted were taken, even though the site still listed them as vacant. Hence, I believe these issues which can cause a variety of negative reactions from the customer from feelings of annoyance in the second example to trauma in the first.
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