That’s advice straight from an Airbnb exec to you.
“We’ve found that if you offer a hair dryer, you can make on average $10 more a night,” Airbnb cofounder and chief technology officer Nathan Blecharczyk said at Quartz’s The Next Billion conference in San Francisco on Oct. 13. “Per night, $10. Like, that’s how important a hairdryer is.”
Perhaps that seems like an obvious amenity, but Blecharczyk says it isn’t to everyone. “At least as a male, a lot of males don’t use hair dryers,” he said. “And so they just don’t think about it and they don’t supply it, but it’s a real pain in the butt for a traveler who wants one to have to haul it with them, and just better if they know it’s there. So that’s my practical piece of advice.”
Airbnb is the world’s fourth most valuable startup, last estimated to be worth $30 billion. While the home-sharing company built its brand by providing diverse and quirky accommodations around the world, it has recently sought to make those listings slightly more professional—you might even say, “hotel-like.” One such project, internally dubbed “magical trips,” would be a pseudo-concierge, helping travelers book add-on services like restaurant reservations and art gallery tours. Airbnb is also making a big push to win over business travelers who might normally book with a Starwood or Marriott.
Having a hair dryer might not be the whole magic formula Airbnb needs, but it certainly wouldn’t hurt.