The Partnership Economy

CHAPTER 10Strategic Business Partnerships: When Two Work as One

Planning a vacation takes work. It often involves several steps: booking accommodations and transportation, exploring the range of events and activities available during a trip, securing necessary travel inoculations and documents, and taking care of important details like finding a babysitter or house sitter and boarding a pet. Although these tasks are all related in the context of planning a vacation, people often have to undertake them separately each time they travel, because the services are often provided by different companies or people.

Qantas and Airbnb looked to ease some of the friction in the vacation planning process by bringing together two of these services. By embedding Airbnb's vacation rental reservation capability into Qantas's website, the two formed a partnership that combined booking flights and finding a place to stay (Figure 10.1). They also adopted a great slogan: Fly there, live there. The rental reservation integration means that Qantas customers can book their accommodations at the same time they book their airfare.

To further encourage customers to take advantage of the partnership, Qantas offers one mile in its frequent flyer program for every dollar that customers spend on qualifying Airbnb reservations. So a customer spending $500 for their Airbnb rental will now have a flight, a place to stay, and 500 miles toward their next flight.

FIGURE 10.1 Qantas and Airbnb create a more ...