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How Twitter Helped Create Airbnb’s Newest Feature
In an age of entrepreneurs, startups, and social media, Airbnb’s CEO Brian Chesky posed a big question to his followers on Twitter last Christmas, asking them what, if anything, would they want Airbnb to initiate in 2017. He asked, they spoke (well, tweeted), and he listened.
Airbnb has launched the ability to split payments amongst guests on the app/website, rather than making one person pay for the entire booking and getting reimbursed from his or her travel companions. Earlier this year, Airbnb acquired Tilt, a predecessor to Venmo and Square, which are all mobile payment peer-to-peer apps. Then, it began testing how it could leverage the technology for its platform.
The “how it works” is simple: one person makes the booking and can choose how to divvy the payments, or allow it to automatically split the total (as of now, up to 16 people can share the bill). After that, all the travelers have 72 hours to submit their portion of the payment to ensure that the booking goes through on the host’s calendar. If they don’t hit their deadline, the original user can submit the full payment within 24 hours, or lose the reservation altogether.
For comments, questions or concerns, please contact Daniella Soloway
