Host Community Tour: Lizzie's travel journal (Day 11 & 12 “meeting Alexandra and Lawrene")

[Lizzie]

Hello hello,

As the Listening tour draws to a close, our final stop is Toronto. I’ve never been to Canada before and so this is a great way to end an amazing 12 days.

We arrived in Toronto airport at about 8pm on April 10th and the first thing I noticed is it’s COLD. 🙂

We then crammed ourselves into a taxis with our mountain of luggage (mainly Erin & Tim’s) and were welcomed i into the city with an impressive night scene of  city lights. 

Arriving at our different Airbnb's , I always get a little excited/nervous about walking up to the front door of my listing, mainly because I want to make sure I can follow the instructions and get in, and I don’t make a fool of myself in front of my host! I manage to get in and the hall way was nice and warm. Soon after I get welcomed by my lovely host, Eugenia. We chat for a while and I hear more about why she loves hosting and how she has hosted guests from all over the world. You really can see the joy she gets from hosting.

April 11th

After a great night sleep and a refreshing shower, I then made my way to the Airbnb Toronto office to meet with the team there. The Toronto office is probably the smallest I have visited on my trip, but the welcome was just as warm and friendly. Here is an image from the entrance (I particularly liked the Airbnb bicycle).

I also got to meet one of the most important members of the team...Potato. Sadly, Potato didn’t have time for a Community Spotlight (back to back meetings), maybe next time! 🙂

Later in the afternoon we head to the Toronto event, to meet with about 30 hosts.

We had a great Q&A session with Laura and hosts. The questions asked were on a range of topics including; categorization of listings, guest education and guest profile information. All popular topics here in the CC, so it’s great that we could have an open discussion about these areas together. Similarly to Rome and London, we  then split up into three groups to focus on three key talking points; Product Feedback, Community and Hosts as partners. As we have moved through the different locations on the tour, it has been great to see the responses we have had in these focus sessions and just great to hear more on what hosts feel is important and what they would like to see more of.

As many of you may know, I had the amazing opportunity to meet fellow community members, @Alexandra316and @Lawrene0 . It was such a joy to meet them both and I was pleased they could ask important questions to Laura that they had on their mind, including a great one on gathering feedback from the community. We managed to capture the moment below, but along with meeting Gordon, Paul and Robin, it certainly was one of the highlights of the tour. Thank you so much Alexandra and Lawrene, it was incredible to meet you both.

April 12th

My final day on the tour and my last day in Canada. I checked out of my lovely private room and headed to the Airbnb office. With Laura, Erin, Tim and Louise all on their way home, I got to have one last catch up with Lawrene, before my evening flight. This time we met over a nice cup of tea, which gave us an opportunity to have a good chat about everything from the Community Center to kayaking. 🙂 It was just lovely. Plus, she gave me some handy travel advice on how to get to the airport. Lawrene, I took your advice and got the UP train.

I make it to the airport and I sit there surrounded by other travellers. At this point, the tiredness was starting to hit me, but as I start to think about where everyone around me is traveling to and from, I start to think back at the past 12 days and quite what an amazing journey this has been.

We have a few more posts to share from the tour, so this isn’t the end, please continue to keep an eye out for them. Thank you to everyone in Canada for welcoming us.

Thanks,

Lizzie

[Alexandra316]

@LizzieIt was great to meet you, and @Lawrene too! Love the pic. You should have invited Potato to the meet up!

Lawrene and I had a great time sharing an Airbnb also, and we managed to avoid permanently traumatizing the host (or at least he was kind enough to give us a good review, anyways!). 

[Sehyun0]

Oh, Toronto!!!  Wow! This city was quite familiar with me as I made a long journey (26 days) with my son who has been living in this city for 11 years after his marriage.

As you know, Canada has lots of wonderful tourist attractions so all hosts runnning their business might be friendly and warm to any guest. I also booked many accommodations with airbnb, every host was kind and comfortable.

I won't forget them. Hospitality should be the 1st obligation to every host. And quick and responsible reply can be the 2nd one. Anyway, thanks to your time and effort, I enjoyed and learnt something great from you. Please make the rest of your journey back to London safe and joyful. Bye!

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

LOL @Lizzie  I lended in Canada during the snow storm one February, temperature was -36 C ... so yes, my frist thought was also COLD !!!!!!! 😄 😄 

[Lawrene0]

So fun to meet @Alexandra316 and @Lizzie and everyone there!

So fun to share an Airbnb with Alexandra, and to have tea with Lizzie. I highly recommend both these activities! 

The weather was much nicer than your -36 C, @Branka-and-Silvia0 . It hovered around 0, and couldn't decide whether it liked raining or snowing better, so did both. 

The weather gets one star, but five stars for everything else!

[J-Renato0]

Hellow @Lawrene0 . I think it was really fun and a great moment to meet @Lizzie  and other members of the community of hosts and Airbnb persons. Great final to Lizzie's tour and for you all.

[Robin4]

@Lizzie 

How do you manage to do this? You keep coming up as bright as a button day after day after virtually circling the earth at break-neck speed!. You are amazing!

How fantastic that you could catch up with two of the highest profile CC hosts in the same place...oh, that would have been a wonderful dinner!

Great photo of you, @Lawrene0  and @Alexandra316 , you look like life long friends.....come to think of it, you probably will be!

Thanks for this thread Lizzie, as I have said before, you don't realise how many beautiful people there are in the world until you host....and it's great that you got to meet a few of them!

Cheers......Rob

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Lizzie 

Great photo with @Lawrene0 and @Alexandra 

We are having perfect spring weather in Korea 🙂 

Enjoy the cherry blossoms~

[Marie21]

@Lizzie 

i think that was an amazing experience to travel to meet fellow hosts and Airbnb offices in some part of the Globe, but wonder how did u manage the Jetlag, I travel a lot and struggle a lot when travelling to Asia/Australia and i cannot even imagine Australia to Canada. It will take me 2 weeks to get over such a trip.  

[Juanjo7]

Hi @Lizzie . I have been wathching the Sidney Q&A with Laura on Facebook.
Do you know if there are any other videos like that? Are the meetings with host from other locations also available on video?
Thanks  a lot 

[Heather740]

Hi @Kirstie  and Lizzie!  This is all great information.  I had a different question:  How do I change my language settings from french (Francais) to English permanently?  Every notification that I receive is in french and I can only understand bits of the information.

Best regards,

Heather M.