El CEO de Airbnb destaca el Mundial como el mayor evento en su historia
📅 May 27, 2026CNN en Español11 MIN1295 VIEWS28 SEGMENTS · 2 SPEAKERS
A dos semanas del Mundial, Airbnb asegura que las reservaciones en México ya superaron sus expectativas, con 180.000 huéspedes confirmados.
En entrevista con Gabriela Frías, el CEO de Airbnb, Brian Chesky, señala que la plataforma apuesta por una oferta integral de viajes, con nuevas experiencias, servicios personalizados e inteligencia artificial como pieza clave, sin perder el componente humano del turismo.
#mexico #mundial #airbnb
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What Brian Chesky said
Written from the verified transcript and checked against it. Every figure links to the moment it was said.
Brian Chesky said the 2026 World Cup is the biggest event in Airbnb's history, with more than 700,000 guests booked across the three host countries, including about 180,000 in Mexico. He said bookings have exceeded expectations, noting that for the Paris Olympics Airbnb had 700,000 guests. The average host in Mexico is making about $1,300, and seven out of 10 hosts in Mexico rent just one listing, the home they live in. He said the average Airbnb is about half the cost of a hotel for comparable inventory, and 70% of listings are under $250 a night. He acknowledged difficulty policing price gouging but said hosts are penalized heavily for cancellations. He announced 70 once-in-a-lifetime experiences, including one with Hugo Sanchez hosting 10 guests. He said Airbnb is expanding services like grocery stocking, luggage storage, car rentals, and airport pickups, and that 40% of customer support contacts are now solved by AI. He said AI will transform anything on a screen but travel will remain deeply human.
Key takeaways
The World Cup is the biggest event in Airbnb history with more than 700,000 guests booked across the three host countries.
Mexico has about 180,000 guests booked, with the average host making about $1,300.
Seven out of 10 hosts in Mexico rent just one listing, the home they live in.
The average Airbnb is about half the cost of a hotel for comparable inventory, and 70% of listings are under $250 a night.
40% of customer support contacts are now solved by AI.
Numbers and commitments
Figure
What it refers to
Type
At
700,000
guests booked for the World Cup across three countries
I'm doing great. I love this city. It is one of my favorite cities in the world. I've been here a couple times before and it's just a city of wonder and magic.
Yes. And we're only 15 days away from the World Cup and Mexico is one of the cities hosting. So, how are the bookings going so far? Have they exceeded your expectations? Are they exactly what you expected?
They have exceeded expectations. Just to give you a sense, for the Paris Olympics, we had 700,000 guests stay in Airbnb and that was the biggest event in Airbnb history. Now, the World Cup across the three countries is the biggest event in Airbnb history. We have more than 700,000 guests staying in Airbnbs. Here in Mexico, we have about 180,000 guests already booked to stay in Airbnbs. That's equivalent of two giant stadiums worth of people. And it's incredible because the average host is making about $1,300 US dollars. It's real meaningful income and seven out of 10 hosts in Mexico rent just one listing, the home they live in.
The stats are pretty consistent. They change a little bit, but it's very, very similar. And the thing about events is the type of people that put their home up for events are just regular people. They're not businesses. A lot of people only intend to host for a one-time basis to make some extra money. Some of them continue hosting long after the games are over.
We've heard some short-term rental owners whose expectations around the bookings for the World Cup are low because they said they expected more and they point to the high prices of the tickets to attend the games. Have you heard that in the case of Mexico, the US or Canada?
I have not heard that and I don't know how long ago they told you. One of the things we found with the Milan Cortina Olympics is the bookings were later than expected, more last minute. So, kind of a couple months ahead of time it looked like bookings were slow. It's just that people booked more last minute and they exceed expectations. I don't want to over promise, but we still have 2 weeks and so it's still possible that many guests will book. So, I mean if people are watching and they want to put their home up in Airbnb, I think that there's a lot of people looking last minute. So, I expect there's going to be we have 180,000 guests. I mean for 180,000 guests, that's a lot of people.
Those guests, if it wasn't for Airbnb, they wouldn't have come to the World Cup because they wouldn't stay in a hotel because hotels are already sold out and the average Airbnb is about half the cost as a hotel for comparable inventory, about half the cost. 70% of listings are under $250 a night and again, many listings have multiple bedrooms. So, it is more affordable than a hotel and I do expect hosts to be full. They have to charge reasonably. There's sometimes when event comes hosts, you know, can expect to charge a lot, but we have to remember that people look at Airbnb as an affordable way to travel. So, as long as it's reasonably affordable, I think they'll be booked.
I'm thinking about the price gouging, so to speak. Some people have had cancellations on the bookings and then they had new prices, higher prices. How does Airbnb supervise, police that?
It's difficult to police, but we do try to. I mean, first of all, hosts are penalized if they cancel reservations and so we really dissuade hosts from canceling reservations and they are penalized heavily for cancellations if they don't have a really legitimate reason for cancellations. And we try to if a guest gets cancelled, we do our very best to try to find them an alternative Airbnb, pre-book them, to be very generous with credit. So, we do our very best.
14 more exchanges in this transcript
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Chesky, B. (2026, May 27). El CEO de Airbnb destaca el Mundial como el mayor evento en su historia [Interview transcript]. CNN en Español. CEOInterviews.AI. https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/942365/
MLA
Brian Chesky. "El CEO de Airbnb destaca el Mundial como el mayor evento en su historia." CNN en Español, 27 May. 2026. Transcript, CEOInterviews.AI, https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/942365/.
BibTeX
@misc{chesky2026_942365,
author = {Brian Chesky},
title = {El CEO de Airbnb destaca el Mundial como el mayor evento en su historia},
howpublished = {Interview transcript, CNN en Español. CEOInterviews.AI},
year = {2026},
month = {may},
url = {https://ceointerviews.ai/interview/942365/},
note = {Speaker-attributed transcript with timestamps}
}
