Whilst Airbnb is rapidly growing in South Africa, Cape Town especially, their attitude isn’t winning fans everywhere they go.

Our story from this morning (HERE) touched on how they don’t yet have offices or employees anywhere in Africa, although we were graced with a visit by CEO Brian Chesky. He was here as part of an event hosted by the company in Johannesburg yesterday, Chesky running reporters through their plans for operations both in South Africa and the continent.

One man who wasn’t won over by the visit is Alec Hogg, writer for BizNews, who came in for some flak following his comments on the brevity of Chesky’s visit. Here’s the newsletter subscribers received today:

For a business which five years ago was renting inflatable mattresses and is now valued at $24bn, Airbnb has reason to feel a tad important. So I guess it’s natural South Africans should be grateful to have been honoured by the flying visit of CEO Brian Chesky who broke into a Kenyan trip to pop into Johannesburg for a couple hours on Monday.

But it sticks in the craw when any global organisation puts this country so far down the pecking order that its SA country launch justifies no more than the CEO’s quick “show face and duck before dusk”. When I expressed as much on Biznews yesterday, Airbnb’s European spin doctor-in-chief chided me, saying he was “disappointed to read your commentary.” The fellow in question, one Nick Wilkins, kept digging by adding “I would ask you how many CEOs of Silicon Valley tech companies have visited South Africa at all?”

Erm, quite a few actually. There’s that fellow Elon Musk. SolarCity’s Lyndon and Peter Reve. How about Sequoia Capital’s Roelof Botha? Or emerging star, former Peregrine director Kevin Cimring of Jemstep. South Africans all, and regular visitors to their homeland. As for visitors, the faculty of Singularity University – mostly tech entrepreneurs – were here for three days a couple months back. South Africans punch far above their weight in Silicon Valley. Trouble is, people like Wilkins seem to think they’re actually Americans.

Well put Alec, when you’re reaping the financial rewards of business on our shores we should expect to be a little wined and dined before you called us a taxi and shepherd us out the door.

[source:biznews]