Design a better Stays experience for first-time guests

Problem Statement Description

Product context: Airbnb is a travel marketplace connecting guests and hosts; its products include stays, experiences, host tools, guest booking, trust and safety, payments, and reviews.

Airbnb wants to improve the Stays experience for guests booking for the first time. These users may be new to the marketplace model, unfamiliar with host-led stays, and comparing Airbnb against hotels or other travel booking platforms where pricing, policies, service expectations, and support may feel more standardized.

Focus on the end-to-end first-time guest journey: discovering a stay, evaluating listings, understanding total cost and rules, trusting the host and property, booking, preparing for check-in, completing the stay, and resolving any issues. The design should account for both sides of the marketplace: helping guests feel confident without creating unnecessary burden or risk for hosts.

This is a product design question, so the emphasis is on identifying the most important user frictions, defining the target first-time guest segment clearly, and proposing an experience that supports trust, clarity, confidence, and successful trip completion.

The experience should consider:

- How first-time guests decide whether Airbnb is the right option versus hotels, Booking.com, Expedia, Vrbo, or other alternatives.

- Friction in search, listing comparison, pricing transparency, cancellation policies, house rules, and fees.

- Trust signals around host quality, listing accuracy, reviews, safety, neighborhood fit, and support availability.

- The guest workflow before, during, and after booking, including check-in expectations and communication with hosts.

- Edge cases such as travel delays, unclear instructions, mismatched expectations, cancellations, or safety concerns.

- Marketplace constraints, including host supply health, host autonomy, policy complexity, and global variation in travel norms.

- How the experience could build confidence for first-time guests while preserving Airbnb’s differentiated, personal stay experience.

The goal is to design a better first-time Stays experience that improves guest confidence, reduces avoidable confusion or anxiety, and increases the likelihood of a successful booking and completed stay, while maintaining trust and quality across the Airbnb marketplace.