Airbnb has managed to both find a solution for it’s travellers but also greatly expand the amount of location based content it can house within it’s website. It’s a perfect matchup of local SEO, content marketing and community building in a neat little package.
The new Airbnb Neighbourhoods content allows travellers to new cities to be able to find the perfect location based on specific types of requirements they have. Neighbourhoods is obviously an American term but I see they are pushing a community image so possibly a wise choise they did not call it Airbnb Suburbs.
Let’s look into how well they have expanded their platform to make their website more of a travel destination portal than just a place to book your accommodation.
Their Neighbourhood Guide to New York is a great example as the city area covers around 1,213 square kilometres and a population of around 8.24 million people across the 5 boroughs of Manhattan, Queens, The Bronx, Brooklyn and Staten Island. To any visitor looking for a place to stay that is a daunting thought to decide where to stay compounded by the fact the city has 500+ hotels and 18,858 Airbnb listings available to choose from.
The selection of what kind of neighbourhood might be right for you starts with a selection of your key decision points:
- Peace & Quite
- Nightlife
- Loved by New Yorkers
- Dining
- Great Transit
- Shopping
- Artsy
- Cultural Enclaves
- Trendy
- Touristy
The platform is smart as you can select multiple matches to refine your selection down to the perfect suburb. You can add or remove features to get a healthy number of listings as you can see below we have refined our options down to 8 neighbourhoods.
If you drill down to Greenwich village you are given a brief overview of the area along with an introduction to “the community” or owners of the 440 places you can stay with. It’s also great that they have included a map of the area and some details about bordering suburbs but also some details such as what’s it like for public transport or owning a car along with some directions to the airport and key tourist attractions. It’s likely that this section will be eventually radically expanded in time. The great part is they have also included several photo stories about the student scene, Washington square park and what’s life like in the area.
It’s only right down the bottom that Airbnb actually markets what are the most popular listings it has in this neighbourhood. It is a great trend to see that websites are putting content/experience first and then soft selling their core products once they have the user engaged. There are also some features such as similar suburbs and also a call for visitors to share their local knowledge of the area.
What about other locations?
The neighbourhood platform tailors the filters for accommodation selection based on what the city is known for such as Rio De Janeiro. Rio’s filters offer some of the following unique filters such as: good beaches, historic, favela, and loved by Cariocas.
What’s next?
There is a lot of potential content that can be progressively added to their platform and city/suburb pages but also it offers cross-selling opportunities for potential partners/affiliates who are able to add value.
Watch their video explaining neighbourhoods