What's on the Mind of Airbnb's New Head of Business Travel

Airbnb head of business travel David Holyoke talks:

• Sales strategy
• Safety & security
• Finding the right use cases with corporates

Airbnb is quickly carving a place for itself in the managed travel space. In the past two years, the company has launched tools geared toward travel managers, partnered with a corporate lodging provider, opened its business platform up to third-party bookings and inked deals with the three mega travel management companies. According to Concur, another Airbnb partner, Airbnb's initiatives are working, as use among corporate travelers increases. Now, Airbnb has tapped an executive from within the corporate travel industry to lead its business travel department. BTN lodging editor Julie Sickel spoke with Airbnb head of business travel David Holyoke. The former president of Travel Leaders Corporate joined Airbnb in November.

BTN: What's the No. 1 item on your agenda?

Holyoke: We have some work to do on the education front. What I really mean is that Airbnb is a part of the managed travel ecosystem. We're going to have to address that first through some good old consumer marketing to let the marketplace know. Then, what we're doing on the sales front for engagement with travel managers and business leaderships is to talk about how we can be working together. Airbnb has had some good momentum over the last 18 months, but we've got a few more things to still do.

BTN: What is the company's approach to sales?

Holyoke: We have a global sales team that continues to expand. We've got feet on the ground in the Asia/Pacific area and EMEA and then obviously in North America. That team's focus is to talk directly with travel managers and other business stakeholders within organizations about how we can fit into a managed program. But this is a two-way conversation. We've got a lot of things we're doing around content marketing and the sales team's efforts to talk to business leadership that we are a cost-effective option, but we're also asking how we can fit within their policies and compliance and controls. Then there's a message to business travelers in general about where the experience side of business travel has gotten a lot tougher.

BTN: How are you addressing lingering safety and security concerns among corporates?

Holyoke: It starts with education. We've talked with travel managers where there have been objections or concerns, really giving them insight into our trust and safety group, hundreds of individuals whose mission is to ensure the safety and well-being of both guests and hosts. That's everything from data protection, credit card fraud, all the way up to a rare incident that could occur. We give insight into that world and the steps that we take for verification processes, the secure messaging that happens between hosts and guests to get [travel managers] that level of comfort.

BTN: Is that trust and safety group serving the corporate space specifically or the entire Airbnb organization?

Holyoke: It's the entire organization, but obviously we have champions and advocates that are dedicated to business travel and are engaged in conversations with travel managers and with our sales team.

BTN: What other ways are you addressing concerns?

Holyoke: We recognize that we're an open platform and there are a variety of options and choices out there. Where we are going to differ from a hotel: an open platform versus a non-open platform. We try to drive all of our conversations around [what Airbnb calls] Business Travel Ready listings because that sets a standard around amenities and quality. We also talk about our Superhosts, people who are regular users on that platform who have a high commitment to quality. If folks want to talk a little bit more about limiting Airbnb use to certain markets on a pilot or a limited rollout, we work through those issues, as well, as long as it's with the intent of progressing to a fuller rollout.

We recognize that we're new in the managed travel space. There are a lot of travel managers and companies trying to understand how the sharing economy fits into their program, so we're not trying to come into this space and say, "Hey, you have to use us for everything." The initial conversation is, "Where are some paint points or some opportunities?" and then how do we move that forward from a promotion standpoint? And for us a promotion can be a very limited, targeted pilot. It can be driven by a market. It can be driven by certain departments. We make sure there are strong KPIs on both sides for how we track success. But we've certainly done pilots in markets and will continue to show that flexibility to the corporate space.

BTN: What kind of industries or companies do you work with most often?

Holyoke: We have 150,000 companies that are booking with Airbnb for Business over dozens of countries. Typically, a majority of business travel spend is in the 15 largest markets that business travel exists in. That's not unique to us; that's just where you see 80 some odd percent of spend consolidated. But I wouldn't say there's one industry that dominates. Where we see Airbnb working within organizations is where there are specific use cases. More than three nights is where we're probably focusing; five-plus nights is a heavy percentage. In that regard, it can be project-based work, it can be group work, it can be road warriors who travel to the same city consistently, it can be related to certain types of travel, whether for relocations, new hires, interns, groups and meetings.

BTN: So are any industries or companies difficult to work with?

Holyoke: I wouldn't say there are barriers to companies. We have 14,000 companies each week signing up with us. We tripled in growth last year, and our forecast is to quadruple in growth this year. We're trying to drive our conversations with companies where we can complement their programs today. This is not about us versus hotels. Where companies are getting compliance at a 70 to 80 percent level, I talked to the team internally here about focusing on going after that 20 to 30 percent: Where is there leakage? Let's work with travel managers and procurement individuals to understand why their policies aren't working in those particular areas and how our platform can help them accomplish that. Usually there are very specific use cases for why that program isn't working on that 20 to 30 percent, and we try to dig deep to understand that. We're trying to bring that into the program and provide that visibility. Those are the things that we've done in terms of our own dashboard and our own reporting and the integration we're doing with large TMCs to be able to share that data.

BTN: Where do those TMC partnerships stand?

Holyoke: The ones that we've announced we've gotten through the integration work. We're live in some areas and in pilots with others and working jointly among those TMCs, ourselves and mutual customers to bring them in and make sure we've got all the data and integration work flowing properly. Now it's just about getting the sales and account management groups to work together to find further opportunities.

BTN: What are you focused on in the middle- to long term?

Holyoke: There are some things we can do on the small to midsize front to accelerate things; we want to build further awareness and education. Then with enterprises, we want to dive deeper in terms of what we're going to build out to address the compliance and control issues. We're aligning our strategy and our marketing efforts around those two standpoints and then working to expand our footprint in main-driver markets around the world. That's where we're putting a lot of emphasis in the next 12 to 18 months. Then we'll probably look at the internal resources we need, both people and processes and technologies and where the platform needs to be in those specific countries.