[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.