Never heard that before? Well, there is quite a lot of interesting stories that happen before businesses become overnight successes. So is the story of Airbnb.
In 2007, Airbnb founders Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia were battling unemployment and trying to earn some money to stay afloat. It was the same time when they had moved to San Francisco from New York. The local Industrial Design conference had left all hotel rooms booked and whatever was available was sold at steep prices.
That is when the Eureka moment happened. Brian and Joe had some extra space to let out in their apartment. They quickly bought some airbeds and set up an excellent website and called it “Air Bed and Breakfast.” Thus was born Airbnb.
Within a short span of time, Airbnb took over the Internet. It signed up property owners from several parts of the world thus expanding their reach on a global scale. The preference for hotels plummeted by 50% as travelers found Airbnb to be far more convenient and economical. Today, Airbnb has become the alternative name for finding comfortable and inexpensive accommodation.
Also, for property owners, it opened up a new source of revenue. Spare rooms that remained vacant for the most part of the day earlier now bustled with activity.
How Does Airbnb Earn Revenue?
Airbnb’s primary source of revenue is the service fee that they collect from guests and property owners registered through their
website. The service fee collected is used to meet the operational costs of the website and customer service.
Travelers are charged 6-12% of the total booking cost, while hosts are charged a flat 3% for every successful booking.
With time, Airbnb has also introduced other services to its portfolio like interior designers, photographers, etc. thus being a marketplace for services related to hospitality. However, at heart, it still is a great website to find inexpensive and comfortable accommodation.
Why Building a Vacation Rental Website Makes Sense?
Although Airbnb gives just the platform a host needs to acquire bookings, having a portal of your own is a great advantage in the sharing economy. Moreover, with a vacation rental website of your own, you are your own boss. You run the show, and you earn the profits.
Here are some more reasons why building a vacation rental website is logical:
- Your business needs it
We live in the 21st century where businesses that sprouted yesterday also have a website of their own. It is a website that is considered to be the virtual address of a business than a physical one. So having a website of your own where travelers can book for accommodation in your place or other places registered on your Website is awesome.
- Brand image
When you are registered as a listing in Airbnb, you are one among the hundreds or thousands of properties whose booking rates are dependent on the star rating that guests give. There is little scope to build a brand image of your own. But, with a website of your own, there is a huge opportunity to build a brand image that goes far beyond being just another listing on the website.
- Generates more revenue
A vacation rental website of your own cuts away the middleman commission that Airbnb or any travel aggregator website collects for each booking. Secondly, you can also use the traffic coming to your website to earn revenue in the form of Google Adsense, banner advertisements and so on which is not possible in Airbnb.
Is it Possible to Build an Airbnb Clone Website in a Day?
If you are toying with the idea of building a vacation rental website, you must consider a vacation rental software that has features like integrated calendar, Online payment integrations, Mobile-friendly interface, SEO optimized tags, Highly customizable, Hourly bookings, Scheduled reservations, Internal chat systems and much more.
To give you a glimpse of the top players, here is a list of vacation rental software you can try your hand with:
1. Apphitect Airbnb Clone Script
Apphitect vacation rental script comes enabled with a wide array of booking and guest management features that will simplify your daily life as a vacation rental website owner.
2. Airhotels Vacation Rental Software
Apptha Airhotels boasts high on features that look, feel and resemble identically to Airbnb and similar vacation rental websites.
3. AirFinch Vacation Rental Script
Appkodes AirFinch is an Airbnb clone script that allows you to build a vacation rental website that can invite guests and property owners from around the world to host and make bookings for rentals.
4. Bookmark Website Builder
Wrapping It Up
Building a vacation rental website or for the matter, any website takes a huge amount of effort. These vacation rental & booking extensions make the work easier by providing an instantly launchable solution that is complete with hourly booking, payment integrations, document verification and much more
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