When the Experiences feature was first launched, I was curious about trying it as a guest and briefly considered hosting an experience in Berlin myself. But now a year has gone by, and this feature is a huge disappointment that has yet to be useful to more than a tiny percentage of Airbnb users. Its prominent placement on the homepage layout detracts from the main goal of most visitors - finding accommodation - and the random jumble of different featured locations is wildly out of touch with the way most people travel (how many of us can just toss a coin over whether we'll go to Detroit or Sydney?). Additionally, it seems to be contributing to a change in public perception of Airbnb's brand that might diminish its popular appeal; more and more people that I talk to are thinking of Airbnb as a luxury brand for millennial jet-setters rather than a practical way to find good-value accommodation, unique hospitality, and interesting experiences. Here are a few ways that Airbnb could rescue the Experiences feature and make it relevant to more guests:
1. Instead of confusingly displaying Experiences in several different countries next to each other, make them searchable in the same way accommodations are - by location on the map, and price. The experiences I'd be most interested in - activities in and around my own city - are impossible to find, as the feature isn't searchable. And while local experiences will become visible to accommodation guests after they've booked a room, what about people who are still interested in the cooking class or the kayaking trip but didn't book an Airbnb room?
2. Return the accommodation listing search to primary prominence in the homepage layout. A new user with limited familiarity with Airbnb would look at the current homepage would see a bunch of stuff to do in places they perhaps can't afford to travel, and some pretty pictures of expensive luxury homes, and have no idea that the site can also be used to find an affordable room in a shared house in the place they're actually planning to travel. This is not only detrimental to hosts offering such accommodations; it's also hurting us politically in cities like Berlin, where Airbnb is associated mostly with the negative effects of gentrification and rising home prices.
3. Make it possible to integrate an Experience listing into a Home listing. I'd be far likelier to host an Experience if it was possible to bundle it with accommodation (perhaps with a discount for customers who are also my home guests), and as a guest I would prefer to choose a multi-day activity if accommodation were part of the package. Also, it would be nice to be able to directly link guests with Experience hosts that I can personally recommend and vouch for.
