A lot of companies are looking at the Airbnb sector and it gives an example of potential disruption on a major player in the marketplace using Blockchain. There are several others, Bee Token (
https://bitcointalksearch.org/topic/ann-the-bee-token-housing-rentals-on-the-blockchain-decentralized-airbnb-2213527) for example with some really smart ex Google and Uber members and VC interest, also with Airbnb in their sights.
My question is more related to this industry sector. Presumably REALT will build a look alike Airbnb platform and then try to engage the owners and more latterly the managers with big single channel inventory?
As an "investor" my concern would be a few fold, so interested to hear the replies:-
a) The founders have no real experience in this sector. Real estate is far removed from rentals and the complexities of marketing, pricing, management such as found in Airbnb and REALT will need to get into bed with PMS systems and channel managers and really understand the challenges at a granular level.
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All said however this disruption is needed.
Hi RRentals, and thank you for your interest and a nice pack of questions to discuss. Currently we have a very intense phase of REALT platform development, therefore we'll be happy to answer your questions step-by-step in the nearest days. Lets start from the very beginning.
a) The founders have no real experience in this sector. Real estate is far removed from rentals and the complexities of marketing, pricing, management such as found in Airbnb and REALT will need to get into bed with PMS systems and channel managers and really understand the challenges at a granular level.Our co-founder Oleg has been
committed to real estate industry since 2003, implementing software solutions and websites for a national property portal
Realt.by and major market players. One of the main focuses for Oleg is internet marketing, and his strategies for optimizing experience of websites have been very successful with customers; notably,
Realt.by is used by the absolute majority of the national real estate market.
There are
1446 short term rentals published on Realt.by, many of them pay for advertising and prime positions. Airbnb and Booking.com also work on that local market, but Realt.by platform is an effective competitor having a significant market share in real estate segment.
Airbnb will struggle with moving their operation to direct payments between guests and hosts in cryptocurrency. This will paralyse their business model and the established way of monetization. If they continue to charge various commissions and fees even after moving to the cryptocurrency, they will not get a competitive advantage from such migration. If they stop charging commissions and fees, they will lose income that is needed for operating a company with 3,100 employees. So it is unlikely that Airbnb will ever implement such change.
The introduction of cryptocurrency will allow REALT project to remove geographical barriers and provide services around the world.
To be continued.