Airbnb wants you to pay to have dinner with strangers

Would you pay to have dinner with strangers?

Airbnb, a San Francisco startup that has grown into a $10 billion business by letting strangers share their homes for a fee, now wants to do the same for the dinner table.

They are encouraging hosts to throw dinners for strangers as part of a new pilot program in its home city.

The company would take a cut of the proceeds, similar to how it makes money from its core business of letting people list spare bedrooms or homes on its website. 

A listing for one of the pilot dinners charged $25 per person for a three-course meal. 

Other apps and sites like EatWith, Feastly and SupperKing already offer such a service. 

Expanding

The dining program is an extension of Airbnb’s hospitality empire, whose users now book 10 million rooms a night in 192 countries on its online marketplace. 

Airbnb has reportedly considered entering a broad variety of businesses in the past three years, including ride-sharing, since dominated by companies like Uber and Lyft.

Deciding to stick with services related to the hospitality business, the company recently launched a pilot house-cleaning service in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.

Airbnb told prospective hosts that they would have the freedom to set the date and price of their meals but warned that the pilot program was still in its early stages. 

Sources: Reuters, Mashable