Airbnb bookings saw 126,000 stay in ‘homestay’ segment in Sri Lanka
Over hundreds of thousands of tourists from around the world are visiting Sri Lanka annually to stay at homes that open up for hospitality via the world renowned Airbnb service for the past six years.
Airbnb started operations in Sri Lanka taking its first booking in 2011 with about 10,080 active listings and recording 126,000 arrivals through this service in 2016, the Airbnb company stated in response to queries from the Business Times.
Currently they have rooms numbering 3102 in Galle, 2557 in Colombo, 1429 in Kandy and 1964 in other parts of the country that have played host to visitors mainly from Europe (46 per cent), Asia (33 per cent), North America (8 per cent), Australia (8 per cent) and Africa (3 per cent).
The service provider noted that they continued to grow in Sri Lanka “because tourists increasingly want new, adventurous, and local experiences when they travel. For them, Airbnb is the antidote to modern, mass produced tourism, and our community allows them to experience cities and neighborhoods as if they lived there.”
Airbnb is said to extend beyond traditional hotel districts as a result when tourists stay in more remote locations they tend to spend and create more incomes for the people living in these areas that have not traditionally benefited from tourism and hospitality.
Ms. Dhanusha Gokulan, a resident of Dubai, a user of the Airbnb services noted that she had never had a bad experience with Arbnb and added, “I think living in another person’s home is better than a hotel for some reason.”
She has been using this service in Berlin, Amsterdam, India and New York and would always tend to check the market rates of the rooms in a place she travels to when on Airbnb.
With over 30 million guest trips in 2016 in Airbnb listings worldwide and in a time when some countries are looking at regulating these type of service providers it was noted that the incidence of negative incidents was “extremely rare.”
Significant property damage (claims that were reimbursed under the company’s Host Guarantee programme for over $1,000) was reported to at 0.009 per cent of the time. “At that rate, you could host a new reservation every single day for over 27 years without expecting to file a significant property damage claim under our Host Guarantee,” the service provider noted.
This has been attributed to the use of “sophisticated technologies and behavioural analysis techniques” that help to prevent bad actors from using their platform.
In addition measures on transparency by ensuring guests provide a government identification helps to give authenticity to arrivals.
Communication and payments are emphasized to take place using the service provider’s platform and not outside of it to ensure no unscrupulous activities could take place.
Also Airbnb states that they have a 250 person-plus global Trust and Safety team on call 24/7 to assist guests or hosts whenever required. In addition they also note that they provide a US$1 million host guarantee to help protect eligible home sharing hosts and their property.