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New Airbnb chief practices what he preaches.
Wednesday, 4th March 2015
Source : Property Report

You’ll never know the quality of your service or product unless you’ve tried it yourself, right? 

That’s what James McClure, the new general manager of Airbnb UK and Ireland, has done. Recently settling in from his eight-year stint in Asia and Australia, McClure decided to stay in several Airbnb properties, and currently rents a home on Kingsland Road in Hackney, hailed as one of the most fashionable boroughs outside central London in recent years.

For the uninitiated, Airbnb runs a website and operates a global network of home-sharing rental properties for short-term lodging, usually for less then six months. Founded in 2008, the San Francisco, California-based firm’s service is now available in 33,000 cities across 192 countries. Users and hosts must register first on the website in order to participate.

In an effort to increase awareness for the Airbnb brand in the United Kingdom and Ireland, where there are some 33,000 listed properties, the executive told Techworld.com he had spent “every night in an Airbnb, whether it’s London, San Francisco or Dublin” since the Christmas season, right around the time he joined the growing company.

As general manager of the team in the UK and Ireland, McClure leads a total of 20 employees, headquartered in Shoreditch. Globally, Airbnb has a staff of around 1,600, according a report last week byMarketWatch.

The global success of the Airbnb model"a brainchild of the now 33-year-old CEO Brian Chesky and his old roommate Jose Gebbia, now the company’s chief product officer, who both decided to rent out their residential space to strangers in 2007 when they couldn’t afford their rent"has prompted its founders to expand operations in several key international markets.

After the opening of the privately owned firm’s offices in Berlin and London in 2011, Airbnb today has 12 offices around the world, including Sydney, Sao Paulo, Moscow, and the recently opened base in Singapore to cement its presence in emerging Asian markets.

Despite the long-standing criticism that Airbnb hosts and users are breaching rental regulations in many cities all over the world, the company has managed to raise nearly USD900 million from venture capital funds since its establishment, and is currently valued at an estimated USD13 billion.

Quite an achievement for a novel home-sharing idea, but co-founder Chesky has shut down rumors on an initial public offering this year, telling MarketWatch: “We have no plans for an IPO.” He added that his team might not have the capacity to execute going public at this point.

Chesky and Gebbia’s unprecedented success with Airbnb has generated competition from other websites, and even huge profits for some of its users. Last week, Business Insider reported that Montreal-based filmmaker and actor Dany Papineau had made some USD200,000 from his Airbnb service, allowing him to avoid filing for bankruptcy.

Airbnb host Papineau found financial success by sharing his private residential space

Having hosted more than 1,000 guests from all over the world, Papineau and his partner know the risks of sharing one’s residential space to complete strangers. Compiling all their knowledge, as well the good and bad experiences from years of hosting an Airbnb home, the couple put up AirbnbSecrets.com, a website that offers useful tips for would-be users.

“Everything happens for a reason and I’ve learned tons of business lessons from this adventure,” he said. “So much that I can say that my Airbnb success is directly linked to what I’ve learned from failing to properly market my film.”

But like any business, success could vary, and Papineau noted that hosts should make sure their Airbnb rental feel like a real home for their guests.

And it seems that Airbnb’s new UK head now has a solid experience with the company’s service after sharing residential space with hosts in the last couple of months.

www.property-report.com / Image credit: BI/Dany Papineau

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