Read the following passage and mark the letter A, B, C, or D on your answer sheet to indicate the best answer to each of the following questions.
The Rise of Airbnb
In 2007, two design graduates, Joe Gebbia and Brian Chesky, were struggling to pay rent for their San Francisco apartment. (I) At the same time, a big conference was coming to the city, and all hotel rooms were fully booked. (II) Seeing an opportunity, they created a website called airbedandbreakfast.com. (III) On the site, they offered three airbeds in their living room for $80 per night, including breakfast. (IV) Just six days later, they had three guests staying with them. This small success made them realize their idea could become something bigger.
Joe and Brian decided to expand their idea and turned to Joe’s former flatmate, Nathan Blecharczyk, a computer science graduate, to build the website. Their plan was to target events like conferences and festivals across the United States. Local people could list their extra rooms or spaces, and travelers could book them. They launched the updated website just before the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, where Barack Obama was going to speak to 80,000 people. Thanks to the lack of hotel rooms, the site quickly grew, reaching 800 listings in a single week.
However, there was still a problem: the website wasn’t making money. To fix this, the team introduced a payment system. They started charging a 3% fee to hosts and between 6% and 12% to travelers, depending on the booking price. This system worked, and soon investors became interested. By April 2009, the company received larger investments, allowing them to move from their small apartment to a new, modern office and hire more employees.
Since then, Airbnb has grown rapidly. Today, the company has over 1.5 million listings in 34,000 cities across 190 countries. Airbnb has become a major player in the travel industry and is now rumoured at around $20 billion.
(Adapted from Friends Global 12)
