Concept of Airbnb: Authenticity, Commodification, and Success

People and Organizational Management

Airbnb is a private company that involved into hospitality service. Its headquarters are located in San
Francisco and its services are easily accessible through website and application. People can use the
service to get homestays. It was founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk.
Airbnb is a platform by which people can rent out their properties to guests. Airbnb charges commission
from the host and guest for every booking and it is around 3% of the booking amount from host and 6%-
12% from guest. There is different kind of properties in different budget. People can search properties
by applying filters like shared room to an entire house, swimming pool and washing machine. Airbnb
also provides pictures of the property and the host/guest with overall map listings. Airbnb is not the
owner of any property as it only acts as a mediator between the host and the guest. It is a way that
connects the people who want to rent out the property or who are looking for any property. Anyone can
sign up on Airbnb by its website or application without any charges. It is an easy process and for signing
up, a person needs to enter name, email address, password and birthday. While registering Airbnb asks
that are you agree to treat everyone in an equal way irrespective of the race, caste, religion, sex and any
other factors. After agreeing upon it, an account is active. There is also another option to sign up with
Facebook or Google account (Starr, 2008).
Airbnb have three options for host, a host can rent out any kind of extra space in home, he can host
experiences in any area and a host can become host for others and become a neighborhood co-host.
Airbnb in working really well it every location. People actually want an experience where they can feel
like being a local. There is a combination of different factors that showcase why people prefer Airbnb
and financial factor is one of them. Airbnb helps guest so that they can get quality accommodation in
cheap prices even on prime location where a hotel charges very much (Phua, 2018). There is a good
earning of Airbnb and it is a very successful venture.
There are different kinds of Authenticity in Tourism-
1. Object related Authenticity- It refers to the authenticity that is mainly related to the originals
that can be valued accurately. Authentic experiences play an important role in tourism and it is
directly related to epistemological experiences of the authenticity of any object, building and
location. It can be analyzed by a person who is an expert in such matters test and he checks the
authenticity that the things are actually the same like it claimed to be.