Airbnb Bets Big on Domestic Travel in Japan with New Marketing Push 

Skift Take

Airbnb is going after Japan’s domestic travelers, the largest part of the country’s travel market. But it will take time to crack it.

Dennis Schaal

Japan is a key expansion market for Airbnb, which launched a marketing campaign there Friday.

The ads, which include TV, online and print, focus on domestic travelers, Airbnb Chief Business Officer Dave Stephenson told Skift. (See two of the ads below.)

“Historically, Airbnb has been much more about travelers from abroad coming into Japan, or Japanese travelers, maybe traveling abroad to the U.S. or France, or other places,” Stephenson said. “This is about Japanese travelers, traveling in Japan, which is the significant majority of the travel market in Japan.”

Stephenson said Airbnb’s growth in Japan would take “many years.”

“It takes time, it takes persistence,” he added.

Airbnb sees international expansion as an important opportunity. In addition to Japan, Airbnb is targeting Mexico, China, and Brazil, among other markets.

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky spoke about the challenges of breaking into some global markets on the company’s second-quarter earnings call. “So like in Korea and Japan, they prefer to do browsing than search. So we’ve had to retool our product. And that’s yielded some huge conversion rate increases.”

And he noted the opportunity in Japan, in particular: “Japan is going to be a longer game, but that’s one of the biggest travel markets in the world.”

Here are the two Japan ads, which deal with the variety of accommodation options, including seaside properties, available on Airbnb, and their suitability for families: