Airbnb announces ‘smart pricing’ tool at Paris conference

Home-share site Airbnb announced new “smart pricing” at its annual host convention in Paris, held 12 to 14 November.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky greets 5,000 Airbnb hosts from 110 nationalities attending this year’s Airbnb Open in Paris. Image by PRNewsFoto/Airbnb

The company is hosting its conference for the first time outside of the USA – in the French capital that is also the company’s most popular city for host properties.

At the conference, Airbnb announced new tools, which the company says will reduce the complexities of being a host. The tools include “smart pricing” which will take information on booking trends and similar listings to automatically set prices in order to stay competitive, rather than it being done manually by hosts.

According to Time Magazine, Airbnb says that often hosts are overpricing and could make more money lowering their rates and seeing more bookings, which would be good for travellers. While hosts set a minimum and maximum price, automatic pricing based on demand could also see the costs for visitors go up during conferences, festivals and other popular events.

Paris is the top destination in the world for Airbnb, which has more than 60,000 listings in the region. The release also notes that more Parisians use Airbnb in their own travels than people from any other city.

Airbnb started collecting a tourist tax in Paris earlier this year, amid complaints from hotels and Parisians who’ve seen tourists move into residential areas, adding a charge of less than one euro per night and handing the money over the city.

Airbnb was founded seven years ago, and the company says that over 60 million people have used the service, which lists nearly 2 million homes in 190 countries.

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