Nearly Every Travel Company Has a Loyalty Program. Why Doesn’t Airbnb?

livemint.com:

Nearly every big travel brand offers customers a chance to earn points and status via loyalty programs. Airbnb, one of the most recognizable travel companies in the world, doesn’t. Travel loyalty programs are popular with consumers who chase flight upgrades and who book lavish hotels with points.

A new rewards program that launched this week from the Expedia Group, which owns vacation-rental site Vrbo and Hotels.com, could put pressure on Airbnb, which had floated a loyalty program in 2018 that never materialized. Airbnb leads the market in short-term rentals, and the company has noted that travelers want rewards for their loyalty. It had the largest share of booking revenue in the short-term rental market in 2022, according to an analysis from market-research company AirDNA.

Airbnb’s share was more than 20 percentage points greater than Vrbo’s. Airbnb declined to comment for this article. During the company’s May earnings call Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky said a classic points program isn’t the right approach for the company, but executives are thinking about ways to reward the best guests.

“I always believe that the best loyalty program is people loving your product and if they love your products, they come back," said Chesky, who noted that nearly 90% of the company’s traffic is direct or organic, meaning visitors go directly to the website or app or find the site without coming through an ad shown in a search-engine result. The company is adept at winning repeat customers, he said. Chesky also tweeted in May that a “guest loyalty program" was one of the top suggestions from users on how to improve Airbnb.