Company: Airbnb via CAPE Agency    |      Year: 2025      |      Sector: Tourism & Hospitality     |     Role: Atlanta City Connector, Experience Curator

Atlanta Airbnb Experiences

Context & Problem

Airbnb is known for its stays and has hosted over 2 billion people since their start. Lesser known are their experiences, interactive moments where travelers can connect with local culture regardless of where they’re staying. Airbnb set its sights on revamping and relaunching their experiences product in May of 2025. Their goal was to work with the most interesting people in the world. But how would they find them?

The Solution

CAPE, a brand new global creative agency, had a solution, but they were going to need a lot of help. They hired ‘Connectors’ across the world, and I was selected in Atlanta. Over the span of the project, I wore many hats. While differing in context from the product design work I have focused on previously, my skills and expertise aligned perfectly with what was needed for this project.

The Result

I sourced, co-designed and curated over 20 ‘Originals’, in-person experiences led by local experts, in less than 9 months. These experiences offered guests a genuine slice of Atlanta through sports, music, art, food, history, and nature. The revamped Airbnb Experiences program launched in May ’25, and by September, 2,900 experiences had been published worldwide, creating over $2M in revenue and over 1B gross social media impressions.

Deep Dive

Sourcing and pitching hosts

I researched movers and shakers in the Atlanta community, everyone from artists and entrepreneurs to historians and athletes. This included connecting with and interviewing my personal and professional network, and in depth online searches, as well as getting out into the community through events and spontaneous conversations. I then pitched them to the CAPE team to get the approval to pursue them as Experience Hosts. I worked independently in Atlanta but exchanged ideas and best practices with other Connectors in my regional cohort, in Nashville, Austin, Charleston, Houston and New Orleans.

Building and managing relationships

One of my main motivators for taking part in this project was prioritizing community and connection in both my personal and professional life. Working with some of the most engaged and interesting people in the city, it was not difficult to create authentic and lasting relationships. By showing my genuine interest in their craft, vision and goals, and following up with clear, consistent communication, they trusted me with building their experiences and therefore saw Airbnb as a partner.

Pitching Airbnb Experiences

Understanding the benefits and goals of Airbnb’s mission was critical to pitching the program to potential hosts. I had to get to know them and understand what their unique goals were in order to tailor the pitch and presentation to each individual or organization. What is compelling to a small business owner is different from what a large organization’s executive leadership team wants to hear.

Creating a host narrative and application

As the experience hosts I was working with were all busy people, I often completed their applications myself based on interviews. I made sure to highlight their background and expertise, how their experience engaged participants through activities that told an authentically local Atlanta story. For both sourcing participants and completing applications, I tapped into new AI tools like perplexity.ai which expedited the process and helped meet weekly targets.

Coordinating pilot experiences and photoshoots

Part of supporting hosts was helping them get their first experience on the books and ensuring they had beautiful, engaging photographs. Airbnb’s visual aesthetic relies heavily on excellent photography and they provided local, professional photographers. While outside the scope of my role, I found myself filling in as a photographer liaison, art director, extras recruiter and (in times of desperation) model.

Gathering Feedback and Finding Opportunities

Once submitted and approved by the Airbnb team, the hosts had to go through the process of publishing their experience through their account. I would often sit with them while they did this, either virtually or in person, and got to observe their patterns, challenges, and hear their first-hand feedback on a very new product. I also got to hear their questions, concerns and ideas about the program. I shared this information with the Airbnb team to help them polish and improve features in their digital tool and aspects of the program strategy.

Building community through events and partnerships

Early on in this project, I realized the need and opportunity to connect with existing local tourism organizations. I reached out to the leadership team at the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau (ACVB) and after pitching the project, they agreed to co-host an in-person event for program participants at a historic building in downtown Atlanta. The event succeeded in building engagement and enthusiasm around the project, providing opportunities for partnership and host networking and highlighting the resources available to hosts through the ACVB.

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