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US: Airbnb has hired Jim Alderman, the former CEO of Radisson Hotel Group Americas and chief development officer at Extended Stay America and Kimpton Hotels, as its head of residential development on its real estate team.
Alderman, who has also served in executive roles at Wyndham Worldwide and Starwood Capital Group, as well as being a principal at his own consulting firm, will report to Airbnb’s global head of real estate, Jesse Stein.
In his new role, he will be tasked with developing and growing partnerships with condo developers as part of its for-sale partnership programme, which launched several years ago in partnership with West Eleventh Residences and District 225 in Miami. The condo buildings in the partnership programme will include short-term rentals and an in-house team that will assist residents with listing their units and sorting turnovers between stays.
Discussing the appointment of Alderman, Stein said: “We needed somebody who could help scale the programme. He’s just a solid human with a heck of a Rolodex and probably one of the only people I know that can sell better than me.”
The partnership with for-sale developers is separate to Airbnb’s ‘Airbnb-friendly’ apartments programme, a listing service which kicked off in late 2022. The programme partners with apartment owners while enabling renters to find a place to live and sublet it on Airbnb part time when they are staying away from home.
According to Stein, the ‘Airbnb-friendly’ apartments programme has grown “exponentially” over the last 12 months, and is part of the company’s bid to “normalise hosting across asset classes” and expand beyond its core offering.
For the latest partnership programme, Airbnb is initially focusing its attention on the Miami market before expanding the model into other US cities with the help of Alderman.
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