Tampa is the nicest city in America, says Airbnb
The peer-to-peer housing service ranks the hospitality of towns across the country based on the stays of its more than 4 million guests. While the South and West make it on the board, Northeast cities don't make the cut.
Airbnb crunched its unique set of data to rank American's most hospitable cities, and according to its more than 4 million guests, small cities in the South and the West are the nicest.
Tampa, Florida topped the list released on Monday, based on something the company calls the "Airbnb Hospitality Index." No major metropolitan cities or any towns in the Northeast made the list. Instead, towns known for things like warm weather, the great outdoors, and collegiate activities were the friendliest for Airbnb users.
The company used its customers' ratings to determine which cities had the highest percentage of five-star rated trips. It then filtered the list to cities that hosted at least 500 trips in the last two years. The index considered factors like cleanliness, the check-in experience, and the quality of communication. Airbnb said it plans to do an international ranking next.
Here's the complete list:
• Tampa, Florida
• Mendocino, California
• Eugene, Oregon
• Bend, Oregon
• Raleigh, North Carolina
• Memphis, Tennessee
• Madison, Wisconsin
• Nashville, Tennessee
• Tucson, Arizona
• Lake Tahoe, California
Airbnb's data team also noted some trends based on user demographics: older hosts are more hospitable, younger guests are more generous with their reviews, and guests tend to rank female hosts higher than male hosts. And, not surprisingly, those who book early have a better trip overall.
"The longer in advance a guest books, the more highly they rate their host. This could be because they have a better selection to choose from, or because they've more carefully thought through their trip and have a clear sense of what they need in a host," according to the blog post. Check out the rest of data crunching here.
