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Airbnb includes Cape Town in new ‘Trips’ offering

Johannesburg - Accommodation sharing app Airbnb has taken one step closer to becoming a fully-fledged travel experience company by launching its ‘Trips’ offering on Thursday.

And Cape Town is among the first 12 cities in the world to get the new service.

READ: Here's how much money Airbnb hosts are earning

On Thursday, Airbnb launched ‘Trips’ which opens up its offering beyond just accommodation to include experiences, places and homes. The company further plans to add flight services in future.

Trips plans to offer Airbnb users access to local passions and interests such as violin making in Paris or marathon running in Kenya.

“Until now, Airbnb has been about homes,” said Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO.

“Airbnb is launching Trips, bringing together where you stay, what you do, and the people you meet all in one place. We want to make travel magical again by putting people back at the heart of every trip,” said Chesky.

Apart from Cape Town, other cities among the first to launch trips include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Tokyo and Seoul.

Airbnb, in a statement, said that its Trips product offers “around 500 experiences” in these 12 cities.

The company is dividing its trips offering into experiences, places and homes

Experiences

“Experiences are handcrafted activities designed and led by local experts - be it a single activity like a Samurai Swordplay workshop or an immersive multi-day experience like learning about and driving classic cars in Malibu,” said Airbnb.

Airbnb further said that a number of experiences will also be available where guests can give something back to communities through non-profit organisations.

“In Detroit for example, Khali Sweeney provides an opportunity to go behind-the-scenes at his Downtown Boxing Gym that provides local children with an after-school program of healthy snacks, homework time, and boxing lessons,” said the company.

Places - guidebooks, meet ups and audio walks

Airbnb said that it’s also tapping the recommendations of thousands of Airbnb hosts to help further craft travel experience.

This includes the launch of the ‘Insider Guidebooks’, which involves Airbnb having identified “cultural experts and neighbourhood insiders” who recommend the hidden gems within their city.

“Find the perfect run from a marathoner, the best dive bar from a local mixologist and the next great undiscovered restaurant from an up-and-coming chef,” said the company.

“100 Insider Guidebooks will be available at launch in six cities - Los Angeles, San Francisco, Havana, Nairobi, Detroit and Seoul - with more coming soon,” said the comapny.

Airbnb said it is also partnering with restaurant booking platform Resy to make it possible for people in future to book tables at local restaurants directly through the Airbnb app.

Meanwhile, the company has Airbnb has also struck a partnership with Detour to offer access to experiential audio walking tours, allowing people to discover neighbourhoods.

“At launch, audio tours will initially be available for Los Angeles with San Francisco, Paris, London, Tokyo and Seoul to follow by Spring 2017,” said the company.

“With Trips, Airbnb also wants to make travel more social, helping connect the thousands of Airbnb users in a city on any given night. Meet ups within Places will let local businesses host one-off or regular events for Airbnb guests and locals to connect with each other,” said the company.

Itinerary, ID verification

Airbnb said it’s also adding an ‘Itinerary’ feature to its app “that brings together everything the traveller needs to know into one simple timeline, with the ability to easily book and add experiences or things to do”.

“Over time, this capability will evolve based on machine learning to dynamically suggest personalised and contextual, i.e. based on location, recommendations during a Trip. Airbnb’s vision is to ultimately cater for every aspect of a trip, making it both easy and magical from start to finish,” said the company.

Airbnb said it has also introduced a new identity authentication process that the experiences community will be using.

“Hosts and guests will be asked to scan an official government ID (for example a passport, or driving licence) and then take a simple selfie,” said the company.

“After the ID is authenticated, the ID and selfie will be reviewed to confirm that both pictures appear to match,” said the company.

Airbnb, which was founded in 2008, has exploded in recent years as it provides access to accommodations in more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries.

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