Bloomberg Audio Studios, Podcasts, radio news LL Right, welcome back, Airbnb hosting a summer release today. Let's get right out to San Francisco right now, we're Bloomberg Tech co hosts is standing by with the CEO and co founder of Airbnb, Brian Cheski. Take it away.
Yeah, Brian, it's good to have you with us. Like, look the way that I look at this new offering from Airbnb, not just an expansion of travel services right. More like Airbnb is an app store where developers can build for the existing customer base. So with everything new that you're offering, is this Brian Chesky and founder mode building it to grow it and launch it or are you thinking M and A and buying it?
Interesting? Great question, So you know, I think you're right. What we announced today were four major services groceries, airport pickup, luggage storage, and car Rentalds. But I told everyone is just the beginning. You're going to see and more services. And what we're building is an ecosystem of services for every part of your trip, from the time you arrive at the time you leave. It is a little bit like an app store in the sense that we' working
with the developers. We want to create really great integrations, we want to create great guidelines, and mostly the answer your question, we're looking mostly at partnering. We're always going to be open minded about acquisitions, but you know, we really want to elevate these partners around the world, and so we have some great partners today and we really just want to be a great partner to them.
The reason I asked it that way, Brian, is like, strategically in the past, you've done some deals. I'm thinking about hotels tonight or like even areas you've divested from. What am I thinking of, like tickets, tourbooking, right, But hotels is really interesting here twenty markets for boutique hotels. I would look at that and say those are also markets where there are some limitations on short term rental. But what's your pitch to the boutique hotel industry why Airbnb is a partner?
Well, actually, it's really interesting they're pitching us, which I was very surprised. And why are they pitching us? Well, because many of the batique and independent hotels. By the way, if anyone's wondering how many, there are about sixty percent of the hotels in the world in butiques and independence. Batiques and independents don't get the same deal that chan hotels get because chain hotels like Hilton and Maria have points programs.
They also are able to negotiate with book and Expedia lower commissions than batiques, and so what we offer is a flat fifteen percent commission on batiques and hotels. We've got this great merchandising for them. A lot of batique hotels, especially in Europe, love that we have American travelers, we have younger travelers, and we're just really built custom for them, and so they ultimately want more demand of young and young travelers in particular, and that's we can offer them.
Changing consumer behavior so hard, or rather bringing new behaviors from a consumer so hard. Like I'm going to pass a roeblaz right in June. So if I book an Airbnb, okay, maybe it makes sense if I do the wine tasting experience with it. But with all the new things you have, how do you actually get people to make use of that?
You know, it's really important that we personalize the app. So like some people want to participate and do a cooking class, to do a food tour in their vacation. Some people just want to relax and they want groceries to deliver for them, and they want everything taken care of. The most important thing is that we have a deeply personalized service. So with a new homepage, the app really learns about you. With AI, we can start to understand
your preferences. My vision is eventually every person in the open Airbnb sees something different than something else based on what they love, and I, over time want the app to feel like it knows you. You know, we're in the hospitality business. Our app is only as good as the sense that it feels like it knows you and it's personalized to you. So even if one day we offer one hundred different categories service experiences, we don't want
to throw a hundred things at you. We want to know the five things you really care about.
Since the beginning of May, I've been reading completely inconsistent reports about travel demand for the World FIFA World Cup, particularly from the hotels. What is Airbnb seeing for those coming for this World Cup?
I mean, we are anticipating the World Cup will be the biggest event in Airbnb history, and we're seeing a similar travel pattern as the Milan Olympics more than sixty days out for the Milan Olympics, it did not look like the demand was going to be what we anticipated, and then something unexpected happened. We had a surge of demand within sixty days of the beginning of the games, and two hundred thousand guests stayed in Milan and Quartino for the Olympics. So what we're seeing is people booking
more last minute. But we are still seeing a huge amount of demand for the World Cup. So to answer question, we are expecting it to be the biggest event in airbingb history.
You spoke to my colleague and friend Natalie learn about Chinese AI models and a misunderstanding of how that works in practice. But I just wanted to clarify. Is Airbnb still using or relying on some of those models you know Quinn or even new ones, and is that the open source opportunity or is that the sort of cloud based API where you're a customer of those companies.
We are not a customer of those companies. We're using a variety of different open source models. I just want to say a few things about this matter. Number One, data and privacy is most important to Airbnb. I think anyone who knows knows we have an outstanding track record on data security and privacy. Number two, all of our data is vaulted. No company has access to our data. It is vaulted in Airbnb. Number three, The Congressional Committee
has reached out to us. They said they have some questions. We said, we want to cooperate, and so we're in direct contact and cooperation with them. And I think before I answer any more questions to the public, I want to make sure that the Congressional Committee. Here's from me directly.
Brian Chesky, Airbnb co founder and CEO expanding bag storage car rentals, Bootique hotels. But I love talking to you about technology as well. Thank you, Thank you very much,