[untog]

So, how do they compete when AirBnb launches this feature in a few month's time?

To be honest, this sounds like a nightmare for hosts. Hotels can do Hotels Tonight because they have paid staff at the checkin desk 24/7 and usually some spare, made up rooms. I'd have to get paid a lot to open up my spare room at a moment's notice.

[seibelj]

I think this works better for people who don't want to schedule their entire lives around an airbnb calendar. If you have a room / guest house to rent, and you don't have hired help, you need to be there. Ruins the spontaneity of life, like if I want to take a few days off to go on a getaway. I could see this being useful as a seller.

However, as a buyer, it's risky. You need to trust that a room will always be available with your expectations, and you won't know until the same day. It would stress me out.

[estefan]

I'd be surprised if this is still around in 3 years. The things you mentioned are the first that came to my mind. Plus, there'll probably be high churn making it even worse for hosts because it'll probably mainly appeal to people caught in a city at short notice, and probably short term in that case.

[nabaraz]

I think there is a market for instant booking. A lot of time I find myself going to the traditional hotel route because i need to check-in within next couple of hours. Additionally going through hundreds of listing, reading reviews and deciding a place on Airbnb is time consuming.

[untog]

I don't doubt there is a market for it. But who would want to list their room only for last minute bookings? I'm struggling to imagine it. So when (and if it's successful, it is a case of when not if) Airbnb introduces this feature they'd just take over the market immediately.

[elbigbad]

Presumably there is a premium for last minute bookings over traditional AirBnB. And there's the factor that, hey, maybe I have a spare room tomorrow and didn't plan on having that, might as well make some money on it.

I've stayed with lots of AirBnB hosts whose "room" is a small guest house in the backyard or detatched from the main house. No problem opening that up because the guests aren't necessarily coming through your normal living space.

I think there's definitely a small market for this kind of thing, but also a small body of hosts with the ability and tolerance to host people last minute.

[toomuchtodo]

You're right. Think of it as free market validation testing for AirBNB. That's $2.5MM of their own VC funds or revenue they didn't have to waste.