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ReadingRead the text. Choose the best answers (A-D). The rise of Airbnb In 2007, design graduates, Joe Gebbie and Brian Chesky, were struggling to pay the rent for their San Francisco apartment. Hearing that there was a conference coming to town and there were no hotel rooms available, they created the website airbedandbreakfast.com where they advertised three airbeds in their home at $80 each a night, breakfast included. Only six days later, they had three guests sleeping on their floor. They knew immediately that this was the start of something big. Being budding entrepreneurs, the pair decided to take their idea further. They enlisted Gebbie's former flatmate, Nathan Blecharczyk, a computer science graduate, to develop their website. Their idea was to target conferences and festivals across the USA, getting local people to list their rooms and travellers to book them. The new website was completed just in time for the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, at which Barack Obama was due to speak in front of 80,000 people. Within a week, they had 800 listings, an achievement which dealt in part with the shortage of hotel rooms, but did not solve their financial problems, as the site was not making any money. The team decided that they would have to handle payment for the bookings. They began to charge three per cent to the host and between six and twelve per cent to the traveller, depending on the price of the booking. Meanwhile, investors had started showing interest in the company. By April 2009, when larger investments began to arrive, they moved the company out of their flat into a new state-of-the-art office and hired more staff. Since then Airbnb has gone from strength to strength. The company now has over 1.5 million listings in 34,000 cities in 190 countries, and is rumoured to be worth around $20 billion. 1 Gebbie and Chesky decided to rent out floor space because A they wanted to attract people to a conference in their area. B they needed money to redecorate the living room. C there weren't any hotels near their local conference centre. D there was a temporary need for accommodation in the city. 2 The new website designed by Nathan Blecharczyk enabled Gebbie and Chesky to A accommodate most of the guests at a Denver convention. B make a huge profit as soon as it was launched. C rent out properties nationally. D put travellers in touch with hosts abroad. | ListeningYou will hear four speakers talking about their experiences of camping. Match questions (A-E) with speakers (1-4). There is one extra question. Which speaker ... A didn't feel comfortable with the people they were with? B wasn't able to use all of the facilities they were provided with? C omitted to pack something essential for the trip? D had to call for assistance in the middle of the night? E was forced to cut their holiday short? Speaker 1: Speaker 2: Speaker 3: Speaker 4: SpeakingLook at the two photos below that show different places to stay. Compare the photos using the points: • Location • Facilities • Cost • Activities
WritingYou have just come back from a class trip which did not meet your expectations. Write a letter (180-200 words) to the organiser of the trip stating your dissatisfaction with the programme and transport and offering suggestions to avoid future problems. 3 When booking a room with Airbnb, A it is only the guest who pays. B both the guest and the host have to pay. C the guest pays a fixed percentage of the price. D the guest and the host share the cost equally. 4 Until April 2009, Gebbie and Chesky were running the business from A a brand new building. B a friend's house. C their own home. D a flat on Wall Street. |
