OPINION
labour pool. There are over 30 languages spoken on-site!”
Airbnb Global Head of Customer
Experience, Aisling Hassell talks to us about being back in modern multicultural Ireland.
Airbnb was founded in 2008 and our mission is to create a world where anyone can belong when they travel, by being connected to local cultures and having unique travel experiences. Our community marketplace provides access to millions of unique accommodations from apartments and villas, to castles and treehouses, in more than 65,000 cities and 191 countries.
Airbnb Experiences offer unprecedented access to local communities and interests, while Places lets people discover the hidden gems of a city, as recommended by the people that live there. We’re a people and community-powered business and a great way for our hosts to earn a little extra income from spare spaces in a home, or by sharing passions, interests and cities.
I lead the global customer experience team, which supports our guests and hosts during their Airbnb experience. I also head up Airbnb’s international hub, right here in Dublin. Before I joined Airbnb, I was Director of Global Customer Experience and Web Strategy at Sage. I’ve also held senior customer experience roles at both Vodafone and Symantec, in Europe and the United States.
An average day… well, it’s long! In a global role, I typically spend my morning interfacing with my APAC and EMEA teams. The west coast of North America wakes up around 3pm my time, and my ‘second day’ begins. I spend most of my time checking in with my operational leaders, or liaising with my cross-functional partners in Product, ITX, Finance and Legal, among others.
Dublin is our international hub office and an ideal gateway into Europe, having a very skilled and diverse labour pool. Our team is truly multicultural – there are over 30 languages spoken on-site! When we opened here in 2013, our CEO Brian Chesky described Dublin as having ‘hospitality in its DNA’ and being ‘known the world over for its warm welcome’. For a community-based hospitality company, that makes Ireland the ideal fit. There’s also a real verve and energy in the city – it’s a great place to get things done!
Ireland’s reputation as a welcoming and friendly country is well-deserved. We have over 11,000 hosts on Airbnb across the country who bring Irish hospitality to life for hundreds of thousands of guests every year. We’ve
also got strong artistic and cultural traditions. We have musicians, photographers, cooks, brewers and more, all ready to share their passion with guests from all over the world.
Until recently, Airbnb has been about homes, transforming people’s travel experiences through where they stay. With the recent launch of Experiences in Dublin, we expanded beyond accommodation and are taking the same people-powered approach to the rest of the trip. There is a key opportunity for Airbnb to help grow and diversify tourism in Ireland through these experiences, spreading new benefits to communities and local businesses.
The launch of Experiences in Dublin has been the most significant moment in the company’s history and is the next step in becoming an end-to-end travel platform. In Ireland, there is room to expand our Experiences offering outside of Dublin as Airbnb increasingly attracts new visitors across the country who stay longer, spend more and are more likely to return.
Over the past decade, Dublin has gone from strength to strength as a technological and skills hub, transforming its global standing. Ireland has
gateway into Europe, having a very skilled and diverse
“Dublin is our international hub office and an ideal
the Minutes with Aisling Hassell, Airbnb
an enormous amount to offer and you can see that in how it continues to thrive as a booming and vibrant place to work and grow a business. Among the Irish tech scene, there is a strong sense of camaraderie and Ireland’s tech industry continues to attract global attention and a strong wealth of talent to the country.
I grew up in Ireland and graduated from Trinity College, so it is most definitely home. With work, I moved to Los Angeles for 15 years, and am back since 2013. It is great to be back – I am really enjoying the Irish humour again, and the grounded nature of everyone. Of course, the weather isn’t as great as LA, but it’s not as bad as some make out either. And there is a great multicultural vibe in the city that has much improved since we left.
There’s only one rule for business: Consistently deliver a wonderful customer experience and you will win.
airbnb.ie
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