Skift Take
Turf wars between individual and professional hosts on Airbnb have been long-standing. Chesky isn't making friends with professional hosts when touting Airbnb's co-hosting network as a way to replace them.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky told analysts during the third-quarter earnings call Thursday that 20,000 people have expressed interest in becoming co-hosts since Airbnb launched an enhanced network in mid-October.
They would supplement 10,000 current co-hosts in 10 countries and help hosts who may not have the time to handle some tasks themselves, such as managing listings and cleaning services.
"The best part of all was this would be an alternative to some of the third-party property management companies," Chesky said.
That won't do much to ease any concerns from property managers such as Vacasa, Sonder, Vtrips, Awaze, Evolve, and many others, all of which use Airbnb to varying extents to attract bookings. One property manager told Skift they took exception to Airbnb stating last month that co-hosts get higher guest ratings than professional property managers, a point that Chesky emphasized