I started hosting three years
ago and I can still remember that
feeling of excited uncertainty before my
first guest
arrived okay who am I kidding I was
really
nervous I get nervous before my mom
comes to stay at my place and now I'm
going to have someone who I have never
met come stay with me for an entire
week I must have moved the towels
between the bedroom and the bathroom six
times before finally settling on where
to put them I had silly questions like
should I make their bed every night or
is that invading their
privacy I even had a friend come over to
do an impromptu smell test just to make
sure I wasn't
delusional anyway after dozens of guests
who have come and gone I have built so
much more confidence for what it means
to
host in fact it was my first review that
got me to do it again and again and
again now I'm pretty proud of this
review I'm actually prouder that 5,000
people are reading it right now and I
know I am not the only one that when
they get a great review they want to
print it out like they've gotten an A+
in the report card slap it on the fridge
turn to their significant other and say
honey look how amazing we
are I love going back to this
review so that first time hosting
feeling may seem pretty distant for many
of you in fact 300 of you here
today have just started hosting the last
three months welcome to the hosting
community so we all benefit when hosts
around the world can provide great
experiences in fact we know that when
when a firsttime guest has a great
experience they are 35% more likely to
stay with another host we all
benefit but it's not just new hosts who
go through these moments of uncertainty
the uniqueness of Airbnb means that we
are learning all the
time learning never
stops and that's why today we are
introducing three different flavors to
learn number one to discover on your own
and learn
independently number two to learn with
another through mentors and lastly to
connect with the rest of the
community so to learn independently on
your own today we are launching the host
toolkit
center now what I've been getting to is
that there is no secret formula to
hosting but there is a lot of shared
best
practices
so in the toolkit Center that's exactly
what it provides the Art and Science of
Hosting there's no universally correct
answer for what to offer your guests
when they arrive but there is some
beautiful psychology and shared values
that you have all provided and we have
managed to package those shared values
and offer them in a personal yet
instructional way for all hosts to be
able to access them so to take a peek
inside and see what those values look
like let's hear from some of our
hosts hi my name is Tim I'm an Airbnb
host I'm Juliana I'm
hi I'm Greg hi am a hi my name is Joy hi
I'm Beverly Susie and I share our space
on
[Music]
Airbnb some things are from experience
and some things are from us thinking
about it and some things are from us
actually staying in the room and
experiencing it Cody really helps their
experience everyone's told me about that
and by having him in the profile I think
you're setting the right expectation and
you get the people who want a dog in the
house
I think it's really really important
that you respond as soon as you can I
tell my guests to text me if they have
any issues even though they're just on
the other side of the door I get a text
that will
say um is there any beer and um I will
text back and say
yes to make people feel comfortable she
goes like above and beyond there was one
guy who was like how did you know what
my favorite flowers
[Music]
are stick to your routine we welcome
people we have cheese and crackle we
have wine don't deviate to them it's not
like oh cheese again you know it's to
them is something new so we just keep
this routine going and then we get
really good at it it's delightful it's
really personal for me there's a joy in
being kind to strangers who you've never
met Airbnb has brought the world to me
so when we built this tool kit we put it
in front of our hosts that we learned a
lot from and I really saw the magic
behind what was in here when a host
across the table had this massive smile
on her face when we asked her well what
do you think of the information in the
toolkits and she
said this is not just your basic
information on how to host what we are
doing together is redefining what
Hospitality means and together we are
rewriting that book in this
Center so in 2016 we're going to be
rolling this out in more languages today
we'll launch in English and French and
next year we will also be inviting you
to create the next set of toolkits with
us and I have no doubt that in the near
future we will be able to watch the art
of fun or the importance of having your
green listing we look forward to seeing
what you guys come up with
next so now that we now that we have a
way to learn independently we also need
to learn from someone else today we are
rolling out the host mentors
program so at last year's open we heard
from everyone you're already mentoring
your neighbors your friends and family
some of you are the go-to host in your
town and City the Airbnb person that
they come to in fact raise your hand if
at any stage you have mentored or
educated someone on
hosting that is
phenomenal yes that is
phenomenal heck I got married this year
and I've been mentoring my husband on
what to do well false mostly what not to
do but either way
new hosts need our
help but with the mentors program it
allows you to really have a Playbook and
know what to do and frankly reward you
for your time that you're putting into
mentoring it's very simple we will match
a mentor with a new host and you guys
take it from there based upon your own
performance we will invite you to apply
into the program
and also based on the demand of new
hosts coming on board now pause for a
second and look at the number of people
here today just look around the room
take a second and keep this in
mind the number of people that you see
sitting here today is the number of
people who sign up to be a host on
Airbnb in a 48-hour window that is a lot
of new hosts with this program they can
have an experienced Pro like you in
their
corner so it's in learning from our
hosts that allows our guests to have
this amazing
experience and what I was so inspired by
is that it's not just your new hosts who
benefit from this you are very
enthusiastic to help others and in
hearing more about that let's hear from
Linda and Chris
this is much bigger than renting out of
room right you know you're sort of
looking is there somebody that can just
tell me that what I'm doing is okay
exactly that the way that I'm that I
want to be a host is is acceptable cuz
sometimes it's the silly little
questions you know you think you know
should I really be worrying about this
or you know just let it go I know and
those are silly they seem silly now but
at the time they really didn't feel
silly and they felt big but you you just
need a little bit of kind of someone
holding your hand and telling you this
is all
right so the role of a mentor is to make
sure that there is no silly or small
questions left on the
table now once you've walked your mentee
through a few steps you will have an
opportunity to leave them their first
reference this is their first stamp of
Hosting recognition and gets them one
step closer to getting that first
booking now I did say that there was a
reward so for every 10 mentorships
completed $250 travel credit are given
to our mentors to be able to walk in the
shoes of what it's like to be a
guest being a guest is another great way
to understand how to be a great
host 350 of you are actually being a
guest for the first time time here in
Paris this week I hope it has been a
wonderful
experience
so you've learned
independently and you can learn from
someone
else but there is a much larger
Community out there to learn from too
globally and many of you are doing that
already we're here to make that
easier so I want to take a step back for
a moment and talk about last year's airb
be
open we heard loud and clear that our
current Community platform groups needed
some love and attention and you were
right there was no search no ability to
be able to find
content it needed to be spam and
solicitation free so it could remain
healthy and frankly the navigation
needed some work for new hosts it was
hard to find and even when they did find
it it was hard to figure out where to be
able to connect with
someone but what we really took away
from
listening was that the essence of what
that platform provides the ability to be
able to connect not just with anyone but
to connect locally is critical for a
successful Community
now for us to be able to invest in a
community platform for the long haul
that means we need to be able to build a
foundational product that we can build
on with a richer set of features for you
and today we are launching that
foundational platform and it's only the
beginning it is the community
center so we had two rules when building
this out rule number one build it with
you and not just for
you what we heard in working with a lot
of hosts were these three
things number one to communicate with
fellow hosts I mean that seems very
obvious but to communicate with someone
who has something in common with you
who's located in a proximity near you or
has a similar
interest back again to the ability to be
able to find relevant information
through search and lastly
to be heard by
Airbnb so many wonderful ideas come from
you every single day and we shouldn't
have to wait for one event on an annual
basis to hear this feedback we should be
listening all the time so let's take a
little walk through the product and see
where it's
going so what you see here is relevant
information this is the London
Community now today we are going to be
rolling out 20 different city boards and
I know what you're thinking you've heard
many times today that there's 110
nationalities represented here today 20
cities only barely scratches the
surface so we're not going to be rolling
out more cities on an annual basis or
even on a
quarterly every four months basis we're
going to be doing this every single
month month rolling out more and more
cities small large locations depending
on the activity that is coming in for
you so when we say we need a smarter
community that also means that we need
to be able to bring popular and trending
conversations to the Forefront so that
you can find them in real time and be
able to jump right into the
discussions next up your activity page
so the great thing about a discussion is
that it continues on your activity page
you will be able to find all of the past
conversations that you've started
something that you started last week May
pick up next week next month and
continue and you should be able to Jump
Right
In now you'll also notice that there was
a consistent search bar across all of
these pages and starting immediately you
will have the ability to be able to
search for information across the
platform what you can see here is
someone searching for what to do when
they receive an inquiry from a guest
without a profile photo they can jump
right into a conversation and one of our
expert hosts Here Deborah is providing
advice about what you should do when you
have a guest without a profile photo so
actually pause for a second we should
probably this bold statement you should
probably never receive an inquiry from a
guest without a profile photo to begin
with am I
right I mean it's great that they can
find the information
but that should be fixed jobbot you're
on it
okay so you can search for the
information but the last statement we
made was that you needed to be heard by
Airbnb being heard by airb and B is one
thing but we also need to be able to
communicate back out with you so within
the community center there is the
announcements board where you are going
to receive real time information blog
posts and what jobbot spoke about
earlier the user host voice report to be
able to suggest product ideas and be
able to get into the product de
development process right here within
the community center and we'll also
report out on the status of it
we know that things break sometimes and
you guys are often the ones to tell us
first when things are broken now we will
keep you updated through status checks
on the announcement boards on when
things are getting
fixed so in keeping with this
rule I want to put up a few folks here
who've been helping us understand what
it means to build out an amazing
platform these 18 hosts are faces
from your community that you may
recognize they are our Launchpad hosts
in this community and they have been
representing your voice and honestly
they've been holding us accountable to
make sure that we roll out all of the
features needed to ensure that the
essence of a strong Community continues
please join me and giveing them a round
of applause
they have been
phenomenal and we couldn't have done it
without them but the one thing we have
heard from them which goes to rule
number two is make sure that we continue
and support this product to iterate on
it I mean what does that mean iterate on
it it means that what we are launching
today is not the end there is so many
more features to come and to show you in
a few weeks we are going to be launching
the ability for hosts to be able to
connect one-on-one privately through
direct messaging as
well so safely and securely you will be
able to have these one-on-one
conversations if you want to take a step
out of the community
center in a following few months we'll
be rolling out a stronger Meetup tool
integration and the ability to be able
to connect at a very very local level
and start conversations with people even
if there's only 10 hosts within that
Community you shouldn't have to be in a
city to be able to connect with local
hosts so starting today I want you to
feel that you can jump into this
community and start having
conversations there is the Airbnb Open
2015 board where you can connect with
all of the host
here Joe gabia spoke earlier about the
moments of joy we want you to go in here
and to be able to post your stories
we'll be gathering them and sharing them
all back out later we're excited to hear
what tips you
have to visit it go to the community
community.
airbnb.com and you'll see all the rich
features that are coming out in the near
future so I've spoken a lot about what
it means to host how to host but none of
that is valuable if you don't have the
tools to be able to accomplish it so to
speak more to that please welcome jobbot
back on stage
[Applause]