Bed & Breakfast via the Internet
June 3rd 2011 02:42
One of those out-of-the-blue, serendipitous ideas: travellers need somewhere to lay their heads; hotels booked out; you've got space in your front room and a couple of airbeds...get together!
So Airbnb set up a website to do just that. After a period of not being able to get funding their idea has well and truly taken off, to such a level that on any given night in New York City, there are more people staying in homes through Airbnb (air bed and breakfast) than there are rooms in the biggest Manhattan hotel.
Which of course means big bucks for the founders of the website.
Brian Chesky said the idea for the site came when he and friends needed to make some rent during a big developer conference. They knew hotels were booked out in the city for the duration of the conference, so they decided to pull out some airbeds (hence, the 'air' in airbnb) and rent out the space - effectively killing two birds with one stone.
There are already over 200 listings in New Zealand alone, including five in my home town of Dunedin, with prices varying from $10 a night (a student flat, I'd suspect) to $165. The latter seems a bit pricey for a sleep on the couch arrangement, so obviously some homeowners are offering a bit more than an airbed on the floor.
I wonder if the local Council will start fussing about them being businesses and start charging them business rates on their City Council rates...?
So Airbnb set up a website to do just that. After a period of not being able to get funding their idea has well and truly taken off, to such a level that on any given night in New York City, there are more people staying in homes through Airbnb (air bed and breakfast) than there are rooms in the biggest Manhattan hotel.
Which of course means big bucks for the founders of the website.
Brian Chesky said the idea for the site came when he and friends needed to make some rent during a big developer conference. They knew hotels were booked out in the city for the duration of the conference, so they decided to pull out some airbeds (hence, the 'air' in airbnb) and rent out the space - effectively killing two birds with one stone.
There are already over 200 listings in New Zealand alone, including five in my home town of Dunedin, with prices varying from $10 a night (a student flat, I'd suspect) to $165. The latter seems a bit pricey for a sleep on the couch arrangement, so obviously some homeowners are offering a bit more than an airbed on the floor.
I wonder if the local Council will start fussing about them being businesses and start charging them business rates on their City Council rates...?
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