The home-sharing site Airbnb is getting more than its share of media time lately as it continues to innovate and surprise.
This digital disruptor to the hotel industry has done the unexpected—launched a print magazine—it is providing customers with customized excursions and it’s strategy to use community-curated content is helping drive sales.
Now, in a partnership with Sweden’s tourism board, Sweden has listed the entire flora and fauna of the country on the Airbnb site to celebrate the “freedom to roam” campaign. Sweden has a law that permits people to freely—sleep, eat and walk—wherever they want on the country’s vast publicly owned land.
The tourism campaign features a video and posts on the Airbnb site that provide viewers a tour of the country, similar to how visitors would view homes for rent. Beautiful, wild locations and vistas are promoted in a sometimes tongue-in-cheek fashion, like a secluded area in the forest offered as a bathroom in “Swedish minimalistic style” and “one-hundred thousand infinity pools” among 100 million acres of open space.
The home page “Sweden on Airbnb” explains: “Allemansrätten – or the freedom to roam – is a principle protected by Swedish law that gives all people the right to be free in Swedish nature. In other words, Swedish nature isn’t just a piece of land with trees and lakes and cliffs – it’s a home with all the necessities and amenities that any great home should have. It’s a place where you can eat berries from the ground, sleep under the stars, swim in the lakes and roam freely. To make this home available for everyone, Sweden has listed the entire country on Airbnb”.
There are currently nine Sweden “Roam Free” posts on Airbnb like “Rugged Cliffs Shaped by the Ice Sheet,” and “Cozy Glad in a Beech Forest.”
When you click on the Rugged Cliffs post, for example, the page looks just like a typical Airbnb home rental listing with lots of photos, information “About this listing,” the “Amenities,” “House Rules” and “Availability”—365 days a year, of course. Further down there is a map showing the location of the cliffs and a handful of Airbnb listings for homes nearby.
Airbnb is in the business of creating unique travel opportunities and experiences across the globe like Sweden, or more like some of its Airbnb Experiences such as cruising old wineries in Barcelona on a vintage bike or having a drink in an artist’s studio before sketching a naked model.
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