In its inaugural leadership symposium in Los Angeles last October, the Boutique & Lifestyle Lodging Association tapped Joie de Vivre Hospitality founder Chip Conley as its keynote speaker to espouse all things original and decry all things cookie-cutter.
Now, Airbnb, which specializes in letting homeowners list their abodes or individual rooms in return for a transaction fee, appears to be looking to use Conley to achieve more or less the opposite objective.
The website has hired the longtime hotelier to help lodging hosts on the 5-year-old website raise their service levels by standardizing some of their operations.
Conley, who has either opened or managed more than 50 hotels in his 27-year career, last month was named head of global hospitality at Airbnb, a newly created title. Conley will be responsible for implementing standards for operations such as cleaning, listing policies and host-response times.
While Conley will be based at Airbnb's San Francisco headquarters, he will also create a "hospitality lab" in Dublin, where both online and in-person training programs will be set up for hosts.
"No one in the industry is better qualified than Chip to help our hosts redefine hospitality," Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said.
The hiring represents a melding of older-line formal lodging operations and the newer-school "sharing" economy typified by Airbnb, car-sharing companies such as Zipcar and ride-sharing networks like Lyft. Peer-to-peer revenue generation in the U.S. will reach $3.5 billion this year and will grow by about 25% a year, according to Forbes, though other analysts are estimating far higher figures. Either way, much of this revenue will come from travelers.
Hudson Crossing travel industry analyst Henry Harteveldt called Airbnb's decision "a smart and creative move" that will help guard Airbnb against competition from other upstart lodging sites.
"The valuable skills in the art of hospitality that home hosts will learn has the potential to create an upward spiral for the hosts," said Harteveldt, noting that skills learned from a veteran like Conley might help garner better user reviews and, in turn, higher room rates. "And, of course, this gives Airbnb a distinctive marketing benefit."
Founded in 2008, privately held Airbnb has more than quadrupled its listings since the beginning of last year, to more than 500,000. That said, the company, which posts listings in more than 35,000 cities worldwide, hasn't been without controversy.
Reports have surfaced about New York hosts who were fined for violating local laws by renting out condominiums on Airbnb for short-term stays, and about residents in the Los Angeles district of Silver Lake who complained about prospective renters that were priced out because of Airbnb hosts who were renting out rooms to tourists.
Conley founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality in 1987, when he acquired San Francisco's Phoenix Hotel. Hyatt Hotels scion John Pritzker acquired a majority stake in the company for an undisclosed amount in 2010.
The company merged with Thompson Hotels in 2011 to become what would eventually be called Commune Hotels & Resorts. Pritzker bought out Thompson Hotels' 50% stake in that company earlier this year.
Follow Danny King on Twitter @dktravelweekly.