CubaTrade-May2017-Flipbook

As we Cubans say, Airbnb
has stolen the show here...
Orlando Cordero Rodríguez,
owner of Hostal D’Cordero
Jorge Neptuno and his family at
their casa particular in Havana
U.S. travelers, in compliance with U.S. regulations at the time, but
within 12 months the company received special Treasury Department
authorization to accommodate non-U.S. travelers.
Within a year, Airbnb had increased its listing base to 4,000,
then springboarded to their present count of 19,000. By comparison,
it took three years for some of Airbnb’s biggest markets,
like San Francisco and Berlin, to grow to 1,000 listings. While a
majority of the new hosts are in the capital of Havana, listings are
now spread across nearly 40 cities and towns, with concentrations
in Trinidad, Viñales, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Santa Clara
and Cienfuegos.
“As we Cubans say, Airbnb has stolen the show here,” says
Orlando Cordero Rodríguez, owner of Hostal D’Cordero in the
revolutionary city of Santa Clara, whose bookings have nearly
doubled since becoming an Airbnb host.
“It was viewed as a new idea and here it was something that
was already familiar to the culture,” Chesky told the public radio
program Marketplace in March. “There were tens of thousands of
people that were already sharing their homes and so we felt like it
wasn’t that big of a risk. And all we had to do was make sure the
community embraced Airbnb.”
For that, the company deployed ground troops to recruit
hosts. The company held meet-ups in Cuban cities for owners
of casas particulares to learn more about the company, while
others heard about Airbnb through word of mouth. “We spent
some time on the ground prior to launch, studying Cuba’s casas
particulares network, and communicating the benefits of hosting
on Airbnb to prospective hosts,” Airbnb spokeswoman Maria
Rodriquez told Cuba Trade.
A big part of making the system work depended on solving
the twin problems of limited internet and limited banking access.
Airbnb solved the first partly by coupling hosts with “partners
that have internet access and can help them manage their Airbnb
profiles, requests, and bookings,” said Rodriguez. In other
cases, hosts have made do with Cuba’s growing number of wifi
hotspots, where they can check in with Airbnb daily. “It’s important
to note that casas particulares have been flourishing in Cuba
for well over a decade without the support of widespread internet
accessibility,” said Rodriguez.
Payment to Airbnb hosts are made through a variety of
channels, including via intermediaries who can deposit funds
into Cuban hosts’ bank accounts. For hosts who aren’t able to
accept payments this way—or who choose not to—Airbnb uses
the Miami-based remittance company VaCuba to issue payments
in convertible Cuban pesos, hard cash that is then delivered in
person to hosts.
But getting that money can take time, and some people have
recently criticized slow payments. In April, the Miami Herald ran
a story about Airbnb hosts complaining that payments were in
Douglas Quinby of Phocuswright: It will be difficult for other players to compete
some cases months behind.
Airbnb spokeswoman Rodriguez told the Herald that the
delay in payouts was due to the increase in volume, and that “we
are working around the clock on near-term and long-term solutions
to ensure our growing host community gets paid quickly
and efficiently.”
To CEO Chesky, such glitches are mere growing pains
for the company’s overnight B&B kingdom in Cuba. Similar
challenges face any advanced digital and marketing platform
moving into Cuba. “Our involvement there will go beyond home
sharing,” Chesky recently posted on the company’s website.
“My personal focus will be to work with Cuban counterparts to
increase internet literacy, while also providing practical education
MAY 2017
CUBATRADE
75