Airbnb Online Experiences
Online experiences allow hosts and guests to create a quality online connection, when connecting in person is not possible.
How it Works
All Online Experiences are live-streamed through Zoom. Once an experience is booked, an unique URL will be created for each Online Experience session.
On 9 April 2020 Airbnb is launched 50 Online Experiences. Online Experiences are interactive, allowing guests to participate and interact with the Experience host. Examples of categories included in this program:
- Animals
- Wellness
- Food and drink
- Music
- Art and culture
- Magic
- Kids and families
Online Experiences quality standards
Global experts: Airbnb is uniquely positioned in this moment to connect people with expert hosts across their country and the globe to experience a cross-cultural perspective on the current climate and engage in group activities. Experiences will be adapted from existing supply on the platform, and therefore, vetted for expertise.
Participation: Online Experiences have to offer active interaction between hosts and guests, rather than passive watching. Airbnb Online Experience hosts should be charismatic, engaging, and adept at storytelling. Participation can take the form of conversation, sharing of artwork, dance parties, meditation, comedians and musicians that do crowd-work, tea parties with sheep where kids can bring their stuffed animals and a snack, etc.
Quarantine-friendly: Since people are staying home, Airbnb will focus on experiences that require zero or minimal supplies for the guest to engage. Cooking lessons that require specific ingredients would not work, but a tea party where users bring a warm beverage and snack of choice would work. Neither hosts or guests should be required to leave the safety of their home or property in order to have a successful experience. A farm experience would be okay where the animals are based on the host’s property, but a walking tour would not be.
More information about the requirements can be found in this Help Center article: What are the requirements specific to online experiences?
Zoom settings
Safety related settings:
- Screen share can be done only by host - no guests can do the screen share
- We don’t want hostile or inappropriate screen takeover by a guest
- Host can put an attendee on-hold (disable from this attendee participating the meeting)
- No remote control by participants
- Removed participants cannot re-join (this is the participant that is intentionally removed by host)
Privacy related settings:
- No recording of meeting
- No saving of chats that happens during the meeting
- No 1:1 guest to guest private chat
- No file transfer features
- No far end camera control
- No attention tracking (a feature let hosts know that guests are not actively using zoom app)
- Masks phone number when a participant joins via a call
How it works for guests
- Guests can view all the available Online Experiences, accessible from "Show all Online Experiences"
- Guest search by location and date.
- On location search, Online Experiences will be featured first if they exist in that market
- If there are no experiences available for the selected dates, the system will suggest Online Experiences for different dates
Host FAQs
You can either:
1. Go to host calendar. Click on the right instance. Copy and send the Zoom link.
2. Tell the guest to check their confirmation email or experience reservation in the "Trips" tab of the Airbnb app.
Guests do not need a Zoom account or to log in. They just need the link. If Zoom is asking them for a password, send them the meeting password from your host calendar.
Go to the host calendar and click on the correct instance. Click the green, "Start hosting" button.
Make sure you are using the email address that you used to create the Zoom account. If you still can't login, reset your password.
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