Jesse Stein is the Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb, a global travel platform that connects guests with unique places to stay and experiences worldwide. He joined Airbnb in 2020 and has played a key role in building partnerships that expand supply, from multifamily housing initiatives to hotel collaborations. Prior to Airbnb, Jesse was a Principal at KHP Capital Partners, where he invested in boutique and independent hotels. He also held senior roles at leading hospitality companies, including Kimpton Hotels, Wyndham Hotel Group, and Starwood Vacation Ownership.
Boutique hotels have always had personality, but getting that personality in front of the right traveler has been the real challenge. In a world dominated by massive brands and OTAs, how can independent properties compete without losing what makes them unique?
For Jesse Stein, a longtime hospitality investor and operator, the answer lies in rethinking distribution entirely. He believes independent hotels don’t need to outscale big brands. Instead, they need to lean into their strengths and meet guests where they already are. Jesse points out that success isn’t about one channel or tactic, but about combining data, storytelling, and access to demand in a way that unlocks hidden value. Ultimately, it’s about shifting from trying to compete like everyone else to competing in a way that actually fits the property.
In this episode of The Lights On Podcast, Kin Sio and Keri Brown are joined by Jesse Stein, Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb, to discuss redefining hotel distribution for independent and boutique properties. They explore how Airbnb is evolving beyond homes, what independent hotels can learn about competing at scale, and how storytelling impacts conversion. Jesse also discusses the future of hotel partnerships and distribution strategies.
This episode is sponsored by Lights On.
Lights On helps hotels grow revenue more consistently by managing pricing, distribution, and digital marketing together.
We help hotels identify new revenue opportunities, so they don't leave money on the table. We also manage the full revenue and marketing operation, enabling the on-the-ground team to focus on the guest experience.
If your hotel needs stronger revenue growth, visit lightson.co to learn more.
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Kin Sio: Welcome back to the Lights On Podcast. Lights On helps hotels grow revenue more consistently by managing pricing, distribution, and digital marketing together. We help hotels identify new revenue opportunities so they don't leave money on the table. We want to make sure that hoteliers can stay focused on the guest experience and we take care of the rest. If your hotel needs more revenue growth, visit lightson.co to learn more.
Before introducing today's guest, I want to give a big shout out to Karin Parker, our guest's colleague at Airbnb who connected us to make the show happen today. Thanks a lot, Karin.
And that leads us to our intro today. Jesse Stein, Head of Hotels and Global Head of Real Estate at Airbnb. Jesse spent five years investing in boutique hotels at KHP Capital Partners before he joined Airbnb to build their real estate partnerships from scratch. Now he's leading Airbnb's push into hotel distribution. And today we will dig into what that means for independent and boutique hotel operators. Jesse, welcome to the show.
Jesse Stein: Thank you very much for having me and I appreciate the intro saying I've only spent five years is actually making me sound younger than I actually am. It's a pleasure to be here. I've spent about 25 years in the hospitality industry and I look forward to chatting about all things distribution and Airbnb.
[2:00]
Kin Sio: Sounds good. Well, let's time travel back there if five years seems too short for you. Talking about before the hotel stage, you had a really amazing background talking about Air Force, NFL, football and all of that before hospitality was even in the picture. Can you walk us back through how you got started and how you stumbled upon hospitality?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, I think you're going back to the roots of my life. And every kid has a dream. And when I was growing up, my dream was always to be a fighter pilot. And I always thought to myself, I should go to the Air Force Academy because that's where you learn to become a fighter pilot.
The reality of the situation was I'm not that smart or I wasn't that smart. So I had to play sports because sports was my conduit to get me into college. And I sunk my entire life into sports from the time I was two to the time I — I'm going to use the word retired, Ken, but was fired from the NFL — was sports. So I decided to go to the Air Force Academy on a football scholarship. And at that point, I was told I wasn't able to fly fighters. And when I was there, I was like, you know what? Dreams change. And you're still an 18, 19 year old kid. And you're like, okay, I can't fly fighters. Why can't you fly fighters? Well, you've had too many head injuries.
So why don't I go try to play in the NFL? So it's a rational thing to do when somebody tells you you've had too many head injuries. Again, Ken, going back to the fact I'm not that smart.
But I decided to go to Florida State and had the privilege of playing football for Bobby Bowden for a few years. I got a degree in real estate and finance and ended up interning for Starwood Vacation Ownership.
When I graduated, the gentleman running the company at the time was named Sergio Rivera. And Sergio looked at me, he's like, Jesse, you have a job here. But you also have one more year of college eligibility. Go back. Never in your life again, are you going to have a chance to play football in college again. So the job will always be here.
So I took that to heart. And Sergio said, go back. So I went back and I played my fifth year and I got my master's in business administration while I was playing my fifth year at Florida State. I was very blessed to become the starting punter at Florida State while I was doing my master's.
And one thing leads to another and I get picked up by the Jacksonville Jaguars after I graduate.
You know, I would like to say I had a cup of coffee in the NFL because I was competing with somebody by the name of Chris — I believe it was Chris Hanson, but I'm blanking on his name. This guy was an absolute stud, like six foot five, like the leg over his head. Like he was just amazing.
[5:00]
I was trying to compete with him. It was kind of hard to compete. And that's when they let me go and I had to find a real job and ended up going back and working for Starwood Vacation Ownership. And that was in 2003.
And so five years in the intro is great, but now I'm going on 23 years in the hospitality industry. So that's a little background on me.
And throughout my career, I've had the privilege of working in timeshare, hotel, residential, and decided to jump over to Airbnb about six years ago to be the head of global real estate for a company that owns no real estate.
So if any of the podcast is listening, my resume is available.
Kin Sio: Well, not so fast on the NFL because I think, before Airbnb, you built that 20-plus years of career into real estate and hotels acquisition and development and all that, right. Especially the time when you were at KHP Capital, you were investing a lot in boutique and independent hotels. Just from that process, right, have you developed your way of thinking and evaluating whether a property was a good turnaround opportunity versus say, a money pit?
Jesse Stein: Oh, 100 percent. And I would say to start at the beginning, in 2010, I actually joined Kimpton Hotels. And so Kimpton had an OpCo, PropCo structure.
So our operating company was actually Kimpton and our property company was KHP. So the five years you're referring to is actually after we sold the operating company to InterContinental Hotels.
So I spent roughly 10 to 12 years in the boutique and independent hotel space. And it taught me a ton. In the real estate acquisition world, you evaluate 1,000 dogs to find one you like.
And everyone, you try to figure out a way that makes sense, try to figure out a way that doesn't. You look at your risks and your opportunities.
And what always led me to looking at it is like, is there asymmetric risk?
[7:30]
And that asymmetric risk could either be, we can put some capital into this and move the RevPAR index up materially, and it's a solid NOI.
Or it could be as simple as the revenue segmentation of this property isn't right. We are too reliant on X, where if we shifted our revenue segmentation through various means, we could get to Y without investing a lot of capital.
And I would take this lens to every deal. And it's very interesting. And the way I thought about it is there's multiple data points.
And if you rely on one data point, you're typically wrong. You got to rely on multiple different data points and take them all into equation.
And those all go into the top of the blender. And what comes out the bottom of the blender is really a decision, which really comes down to one cell in an Excel spreadsheet.
And it's do I believe this or do I not believe this, whatever this is. And that's what drove me on my investment side.
But I will say it was a benefit being at Kimpton because we had so much data on the operating metrics of hotels. And we knew how we positioned our product.
But we also had some challenges. And the challenges we had is even though Kimpton was like 70 hotels when we sold it, that's not that big.
Like 70 hotels is not a global footprint. The consumer is not aware of 70 hotels. The consumer coming to the Kimpton in Los Angeles who lived in Paris had no idea what Kimpton was.
We at Kimpton were very proud of Kimpton. But the reality is our locations were global. And we were very reliant on Expedia, Booking, and other channels.
[10:00]
We tried to create a loyalty base, but even at 70 hotels, it was hard. It was really hard. And when you compare that to the loyalty program of some of the larger brands, they have global distribution.
Kimpton didn't have that. And that's when we were approached and we ended up selling the OpCo and we spun off the PropCo to KHP, which we invested in Kimpton hotels if it was right.
We invested in independent, purely independent hotels if it was right. And at the end of the day, we also affiliated with Marriott and Hilton on some hotels where we thought that was right.
So a lot of lessons learned. We could talk about a variety of things on the podcast, but every deal is different and every deal has different opportunities. You just need to focus — or not even deal.
Every piece of real estate has different opportunities. You just got to ensure you focus on the right ones and really be maniacally focused on those.
Kin Sio: And sometimes it just feels shocking when hearing this, because I know thinking about lots of the independent boutique owners, right, they are small business, mom and pop, one, two, three hotels.
And even from your perspective, talking about, hey, we now have built this big corporate of 70 hotels, but it still feels so small in the grand scheme of things, how big our world is, right?
It's shockingly alarming, okay, how mom and pop small property owners should think about their business, which we're going to definitely talk a lot about that.
But I think just that scale sometimes is shocking — it could shock many people.
Jesse Stein: Which aspects?
Kin Sio: Well, thinking about if a corporate with 70 hotels back then had a hard time competing with all these big brands, right, like the Marriotts and all that and getting on the OTAs, Expedia and Booking, like if a portfolio of 70 hotels, they had a hard time.
Now thinking about a hotel in Montana, which is a podcast interview with somebody in Montana who owns a historic hotel in a town of 2,700 people.
Jesse Stein: Yeah, well, I think I look at it differently. I would say there's different ways to compete. It's — I wouldn't say we had a hard time competing.
We had some great properties that RevPAR index was insanely better than the market in the first layer comp set. It's just how you compete and how you get the reach you need to fill because every property is different.
Like in Montana, I'm assuming a lot of demand is domestic demand. And there's ways to compete with domestic demand. In a market like Hawaii, you have international demand, you have a ton of demand from California, but you also have a ton of demand from APAC.
[12:30]
So there's different ways to compete depending on where you are. And if you're in Orlando, basically, how close are you to the ears? The ears are the Universal Studios and there's different ways to compete. So I wouldn't be alarmed by it.
I would just understand it and understand there's different ways to compete and leverage your strengths and enhance your challenges. So I wouldn't take it as we got rid of Kimpton or the Kimpton was sold because we couldn't compete. No.
Like we were competing really, really well, but we were a small private company. And to go global, it's just a different animal than a small private company. But no, we had some phenomenal general managers and phenomenal revenue management teams that competed like crazy and won in a lot of different markets.
So I wouldn't be too overwhelmed by it. I would just face the reality. It's like you're playing a different team. Play a different play.
Kin Sio: Yeah. And see what tools available. So now we're going to be talking about Airbnb today. But before we get to the Airbnb, the whole set of things. So you moved from KHP to Airbnb and it wasn't a hotel back then.
Right. You started their whole real estate partnership program from scratch and now it's back to hotel. Right. So how does that — what drove you away from hotel for a bit? And obviously, full circle now coming back, you're building a hotel program again for Airbnb. So how did that transition work out for you?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, well, I would say first and foremost, I'm a real estate investor and everything I try to bring to Airbnb is driving incremental value. Well, trying to thread the needle between driving incremental value for the real estate owner while also providing our guest the best value.
So it's always threading these needles. So when you think about why I was hired at Airbnb, Airbnb had gone from zero to a monstrous company working with individuals. They had never actually partnered with the largest real estate owners in the world.
And my job was really to come up with strategies and products to scale with the largest real estate owners in the world and unlock the ability for anybody to host their home, but also drive incremental value to our real estate partners.
[15:00]
So the first thing I launched was something called the Airbnb Friendly Real Estate, Airbnb Friendly Apartments. And the idea of that is historically, since Airbnb is now a noun and a verb, the cost to become an Airbnb host is you have to own your home.
And 35 percent of the population in the US, roughly 50 million homes out of the 135 million homes, round numbers, are renters. So Airbnb started because Brian Chesky, Nate and Joe couldn't pay their rent.
That is the essence of Airbnb. It wasn't started by these three guys to become an $80 billion company. It was started because they were about to get evicted because they couldn't pay their rent.
And fast forward 15 years, the Brian, Joe and Nate today, they don't need the money to pay rent, just to be honest, but like the next version of them may.
And so that's really the heart and soul of the Airbnb Friendly Apartments program is to give the renter the opportunity to keep up with the cost of living by hosting part time when they travel.
So I launched that program roughly three years ago, and we've now scaled to over 1,000 properties across the US. And we have thousands of renters that are hosting roughly 30 days a year to keep up with the cost of living.
So that business is now scaling, and we're continuing to grow. And then we launched what was next. It was really, everybody wants to own a second home, everybody, but nobody really wants to pay for it.
Let's just be honest, like, I want to own a second home, but I don't want to pay for it. I want somebody else to pay for it. So that's just inherent to all of us, and I can't afford a second home in Hawaii, or Miami, or wherever.
[17:30]
So one way to take the message of Airbnb Friendly Apartments with the incremental revenue is to work with developers to build new condos that allow Airbnb, very much like what you have in Waikiki, the condo hotel model, where kind of take that to a larger model.
So we started that in Miami, with a group called the Related Group. We've also worked with Crescent Heights, and others to develop new towers where consumers from the global audience can buy a unit, use it 365 days a year, or rent it out 365 days a year.
And we've done it from the ground up. And so now there's roughly 15,000 units of this under construction in Miami. And we're looking to expand that as well. And a couple months ago, my heart, my soul is in hotels. I am a hotelier. I can honestly come on a podcast now and say I love hotels, even though I work at Airbnb.
And I could say Airbnb loves hotels. We actually do now. And it's the elephant in the room. Like we were the anti hotel website forever. Let's just be honest. I mean, look at our ads. They're great, by the way. But the reality is, not every trip is perfect for an Airbnb. A lot of trips are. But there are other trips and other consumers that love hotels.
And we are very blessed with our consumer base, our guests. We have 650 million plus guest accounts on Airbnb. Airbnb was on 1.6 billion devices last year. So our guests come to Airbnb first to find an Airbnb. But they're also there sometimes to find hotels. And that kind of leads us to this conversation.
Kin Sio: Yeah. So how does that philosophy change? Because I think about when you were building some of those AFA program from scratch, I think there are lots of convincing to the bigger developers. Now, having the partnership at a commercial level, I see some similar pattern of the jobs to be done on the hotel side.
Right now convincing hotel operators from seeing Airbnb as a competitor now as a partner. Right? So what, and I know you guys already piloted the programs to a few cities in the world right now. What are some of the major common objections that you hear? And how did you overcome it?
[20:00]
Jesse Stein: You know, I would say, I kind of make a joke of it earlier. But the misperception that Airbnb is the anti-hotel website, like at the end of the day, Airbnb is a noun and a verb. And what I think has happened is we've grown up as a company.
And we realize travel is a monstrous, monstrous business. And there is a world which exists today, where travel continues to grow. And in a world of AI, in a world of technology, the one constant is people love to travel, people love to get out and see the world, meet new people in travel.
And we've grown up. And not every trip is perfect for an Airbnb. Not every trip is perfect for a hotel. But our guests are looking for both on Airbnb. And if they're not finding what they're looking for on Airbnb, they're going to one of our competitors in Booking.com.
So it is a big shift for us. And the founders are now, they're old, they're like 40 years old. They're like ancient. That's a joke, Nate and Brian, if you ever see it, you guys still look great. You're still young.
But nonetheless, like we have grown up and we realize we are in the travel business and we are in the experience business. So we are blessed with all of our guests worldwide and our hosts worldwide. And we want to be the one stop shop for our guests to find whatever accommodation they need to be looking for, regardless of the trip type.
And the feedback we've gotten is when I've talked to these owners and operators, like it makes sense. It makes sense. Now we were not built for the hotel business. We were built for the Airbnb business. So we have, and we're working on this a lot of work to do to work within the confines of the hotel business.
[22:30]
Things like API connectivity to channel managers, things that weren't at the core of Airbnb that we're working on. And I try to simplify it and say, we are creating an easy button for hoteliers to not change the way they operate.
But instead for us to change how we operate to ingest their inventory and their rate plans, and then merchandise it the way consumers and guests have historically seen hotels. Property first, room type second, XYZ, which is like a philosophical change for Airbnb. Right. It's crazy, but it's not that crazy.
Kin Sio: Yeah, well, I think you're getting Carrie excited because I know this is like Carrie's world into managing our clients' distribution and all those new configuration. I'm going to have Carrie ask a lot more questions about those philosophy. But before that, I think everything end of the day is about the guests, right? So I definitely want to find now, thinking from a guest journey perspective coming to Airbnb when they used to be looking at individual homes and the state kind of the experience is kind of different from what we've seen.
From looking at a hotel. So thinking about building that different experience for hotel discovery from a guest journey perspective, what from the consumer side of things that Airbnb had to build differently to like, is there needs to be a nuance or if there's a nuance, I can know how should that be different? And how should that experience be as pleasant as booking a traditional Airbnb booking?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, so again, Airbnb is a noun and a verb to find a home, not a hotel. So everything we're doing in the product right now is testing and iterating to get to the exact point because the North Star is really a guest comes to Airbnb. And before they even come considering they've probably come to Airbnb before, we know who they are, we know what they're looking for. And the second they type in their travel dates, we know what works better for them based on their own preference. And that's where we're trying to get because I 100 percent agree with you. If it doesn't work for the guest or the consumer, it doesn't matter. And so that is everything we're doing and testing right now. But simple things like we've launched in the early markets, LA, San Francisco, New York, Madrid, like merchandising a property first.
[25:00]
And you are staying at the X hotel. I'm not even gonna name my hotel, because I don't want any of my partners to get mad at me. But I love you all.
I'm an ex hotel, and then really telling the story of the hotel, like, why is this hotel on Airbnb? What is special about this hotel? Because I do feel like a lot of the independent hotels have something unique and authentic to offer. And I don't feel like right now that story is being told to the world on a lot of our competitors' websites.
But Airbnb has gotten consumers and guests comfortable with staying with hosts across the world and really telling the story of the supply. So one of the things that I have to say that I'm really proud of about Airbnb is the storytelling and figuring out what is special and making that front and center for the guest. And that's more on like the property pages, if you will.
Now, ensuring the guests are seeing what they're wanting is what we're testing. And that is what we will continue to test. Because we are building this vertical at the moment. And obviously, some things we've launched have been home runs. Other things we've launched, we're like, Oh, we learned something, let's learn and iterate. And that is the great thing about tech, is you can learn fast.
And given our consumer base, and the fact we're on 1.6 billion devices last year, we are getting data every day to go to that exact point. And I was just on a call with our product and engine team. And it's just amazing how fast the team's moving. It's mind blowing.
Carrie: Yeah, I am. And sorry, Ken, I know you have probably other questions. But I think that's something that is really important, especially as we're trying to, in Hawaii, but for Airbnb, trying to build up the inventory right for the Airbnb hotel platform. And that's something that, as I'm talking to my partners to that I just haven't mentioned yet is the strength that Airbnb has in telling the story. And it's so needed for independent hotel.
Because they don't have the benefit of a global brand. There isn't that awareness. So I actually took it down as a note as talking to some of our partners, about just how well you tell a story and how much that can really hit the heart of a consumer and get people to really buy into the inventory that you have on your platform.
Jesse Stein: Yeah, that's really kind. And also, it's like, if you're going to Hawaii, just because you guys are based in Honolulu, I want to go stay somewhere that gives me the feel of Hawaii. And I feel like independent hotels do that really well. And there's a couple examples in Hawaii, which you're well aware of. It's like, this feels like I'm here, like I'm experiencing the culture.
[27:30]
Our slogan at Kimpton was live like a local. None of our projects, none of our properties look the same. They all brought in threads of the local flavor, if it's San Francisco, Miami, whatever it may be. And the consumer or the guest needs to be able to find these properties and understand the story of the property, like why stay here.
And that's our approach and why we're so focused on the independent hotels is we truly feel they do a phenomenal job at being authentic. And that's the core of Airbnb like authenticity, like live like a local, even though that's Kimpton's term, I'd like to use it sometimes.
Carrie: I love that term, actually. One question, and it probably doesn't have much to do with commercial strategy or distribution, but you're redefining Airbnb and the product that you're putting out there. What do you look for in your teams when you're trying to build a new team to really execute the shift in mindset with regard to what you're selling?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, the team. It's a — that's a really great question. We're building a new business. And so you have to understand the business, right? Number one. So like, if you don't understand the business, like that is a challenge. But what's more important to me in life is —
Everybody gets knocked down. Everybody. I've been knocked down a million times. So is everybody I've known, but the ones that succeed are the ones that are willing to get back up and brush it off. And keep their head down and keep working. So that sort of work ethic, I'm trying to figure out what the adjective is to describe that. But
working through the challenges and being nimble and embracing the adventure is our term at Airbnb. Because adventures aren't always great. Sometimes you'll get nos. Sometimes things won't work. But you know what? Fail fast. Get back on the horse and continue to ride. And that is something that I always look for in people is are you willing to bounce back?
And nobody is perfect. Nobody. It's just how quick can you respond, get back up and continue to move down the field?
Carrie: I think you've chosen the right people, especially the ones I've interacted with from your company. So yeah, I love the people that we work with here. And they do such an amazing job. Karin, of course.
Jesse Stein: I love Karin. And the other I mean, it's hard. It's hard for this one, but like, authentic people that are truly good human beings. Yeah. And always be kind, always be respectful, and just be a good person. And that is paramount to anything we do. It's like if you're not — integrity first.
[30:00]
Carrie: Yeah. And I mean, this is a very relationship based market. And to have someone like Karin, who's really spent years building up those relationships has really been helpful in getting us information and really putting that out there to our partners and our clients to make sure that they understand the value of what Airbnb brings. I mean, the field is crowded, right?
There's a lot of competition. And there's a lot of people and companies that really provide an OTA like service to these hotels. So really being able to differentiate that message has been very helpful.
Jesse Stein: I am coming for Karin's job, though. I want to live in Hawaii. Karin, I love you, but I'm putting my resume in the ring.
Carrie: So, Jesse, one last question for you, for me, at least, we work with a lot of independents, and there's a philosophical idea that direct is first. And we should always be doggedly pursuing direct business. And as somebody who manages their revenue often, I understand the reasons behind it, right, the cost of acquisition, all of the things that we're able to do to impact that.
But why would then an independent hotel pivot to an OTA and more granularly, why Airbnb?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, I always hear direct first, by the way. That was always our mantra at Kimpton. What's interesting about the direct strategy is what is the actual cost of direct?
And when you put everything into a blender, what is the actual cost of direct? And I think that's a philosophical question. I would love for somebody to tell me, but when you add in all the various marketing, all the headcount, all the XYZ, is it actually more, is it actually driving more NOI to the hotel owner or not?
And that is a question. And I'll defer to a lot of our partners to answer that question. But I do hear that a lot. But I do think leveraging Airbnb is powerful. And we do have a best in class commission structure relative to our peers.
[32:30]
We have an insanely wide audience. And we've created a tiered structure where the more business we drive, the lower the commission goes. So there's a way where I could argue, depending on the company, that direct is potentially more expensive than distribution with us.
But I can talk about that one off with your partners, not on a broader podcast that is going to go to a million people. Sorry.
But why Airbnb? I think I forgot that question. We are a global audience. And everybody wants to go to just — you guys are in Hawaii, everybody wants to go to Hawaii.
We have presence in APAC, we have presence in California, we have presence in Madrid. And you can reach a global audience by partnering with us at a best in class commission. So, and we're going to tell a story of your property that is what I would argue is better than our competitors.
And it's really going to — owners put their heart and souls into these properties. And managers do as well. I mean, it's amazing. I love walking properties. I love spending time with the team on site. Just the pride in telling the story and the pride of that is something I think we are very blessed to be able to do well.
Kin Sio: So in terms of the guest profile, thinking about different channels of OTAs, for example, right? Do you see through Airbnb, you can provide a different set of guest profile who book through Airbnb in comparison to guests who might be booking through other OTA channels like Booking or Expedia?
Do you see a difference in your data? And how does — is there a particular preference from a hotel perspective for these kind of different profiles?
[35:00]
Jesse Stein: Yeah, obviously, we don't have access to their data. But from what our data and our research shows is we do have some overlapping guests, to be honest. But a lot of our guests, what's interesting is most of our guests come to Airbnb first. And they come organically.
So we're not buying those eyeballs from Google or any other channel at scale, like some of our competitors. So consumers and guests come to Airbnb first. And if they don't find what they're looking for, sometimes they go to other places to book a hotel.
And so when it comes to the demographics of the guests, it's up and down the spectrum. We obviously tend to skew, sometimes lower from an age perspective. But my 99 year old grandmother just booked an Airbnb. So God bless her, she's turning 100 in November. So it's, we're up and down the spectrum, but I would say 90 percent of our traffic is organic.
And so consumers and guests are coming to Airbnb first, and they're looking for places to stay on their vacation, or their business travel. And it's really interesting, we track the bounce rates and XYZ.
And it's really interesting when we don't have a healthy amount of supply or the right supply for their trip, then they're going to our competitors to book it. So we are trying to ensure our guests have everything they could be looking for, regardless of trip on Airbnb.
Kin Sio: Gotcha. And as we're getting close to the time, so I just got two more questions for you, Jesse. So one is talking about loyalty program. And I know that Brian Chesky last year, on his call, briefly mentioned something is in the work. And we all know, as an independent and boutique is almost one of the biggest disadvantage to the big brand with like the Marriotts and Hiltons, those big programs, right.
And I think this is very naturally supplementing what you guys are doing, and so tell us about things. What can you share — anything not confidential and more like philosophical that we can share with our listeners right now?
[37:30]
Jesse Stein: I honestly can't share anything new, except for, as Brian mentioned, it's in the works. And I don't want to get slapped by the SEC or Brian Chesky for announcing anything public on this podcast. So I'm going to defer that question, but please know it's in the works.
Kin Sio: Yep. Cool. No worries. So last question for you to get us off here. So now, you build a team, you launch a pilot in some of those cities. And so what needs to happen in the next 12 months to really ramp up this program to start like — I think lots of — we're excited for our clients, you now have another channel and opportunities to drive incremental businesses.
So what do we — how long do we have to wait? What should independent hotel owners expect in the next 12 months?
Jesse Stein: Yeah, I would say our initial data is very promising. And we are seeing solid scale and the markets we've launched, we're learning, but we have a plan. And I would say what is keeping us from going faster? It's just execution of resources.
And so we need to ensure on our partner side, we have the proper connectivity, which we're building, and ensuring we can ingest all of the inventory, get all the rate plans, XYZ. So that's the partner side.
On the guest side, it's everything you mentioned about earlier, it's like continuously testing, continuously having this feedback loop, shipping features, learning and iterating. And obviously, there's blocking and tackling regarding tax and any structures, XYZ, all that fun stuff.
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But the reality is, it's only a matter of time before we scale. Because what we've learned is our guests love booking independent hotels on Airbnb. We just have to find the right way to merchandise it for them to ensure it's the proper trip for them.
And we have to find the right way to make it as easy as humanly possible for our partners to work with us. And that's what we're focused on. And that's what the team is working on 24 hours a day. And I would love for it to go faster. But there's 24 hours in a day. And we are trying our best to expedite it, but it's coming. So I would say, all your independent hotel partners that you're working with us, if they're in Hawaii, Karin is great.
And if they're not, just reach out to me, and we'll work with you. And we'll make it as easy as humanly possible because we do want to tell the story of every independent hotel in the world. And it's only a matter of time before we get there.
Kin Sio: Gotcha. Thank you very much, Jesse. Where can people learn more about you?
Jesse Stein: Oh, more about me? I don't know. I honestly, that's a great question. Listen to the podcast. I think we've covered some great stuff here. And don't go too down a rabbit hole on Google with Jesse Stein. It's kind of weird.
Kin Sio: Well, Jesse, thank you very much for your time for joining us. Thank you so much.
Jesse Stein: All right. Thank you. Have a great day.
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