Travelling for business or pleasure? Airbnb, the home rental start-up, wants to be your go-to for both.
On Monday, the company introduced a business travel initiative,
expanding Airbnb beyond the vacation and couch-surfing crowds it has
traditionally focused on.
Since 2008, Airbnb has hosted a service that allows home and
apartment owners to rent out rooms for short periods of time,
effectively becoming short-term hostels for travellers.
The new effort adds a section to the company's website, tailored for
business travellers. Airbnb started its push for business travellers by
forming partnerships with other technology companies, such as file
management company Evernote, ride-sharing start-up Lyft and cloud
computing business Salesforce, which have integrated Airbnb options
into their corporate travel booking systems.
In addition, Airbnb plans to offer the service to other businesses as well.
"Nearly 10 per cent of Airbnb's customers travel for business
already and we've heard from customers that this type of offering is
high on their wish list," Mr Chip Conley, Airbnb's head of global
hospitality, said in a statement.
Airbnb, which operates in nearly 200 countries, has also teamed up
with Concur, the expense account and travel booking management company.
Through the partnership, travellers can book Airbnb accommodations via
Concur's smartphone app or website. Expenses for the bookings will
automatically appear in Concur's expense account management software.
Airbnb's pitch is aimed at those on business trips who tire of
lodging at large hotel chains. Often, Concur has found, employees have
ventured outside their internal travel systems to book trips using
Airbnb's service, including travellers who have corporate deals worked
out with a hotel chain.
The initiative is a large undertaking for the rental-sharing
company, squarely taking on giants in the hospitality industry such as
Marriott International.
The move into the sector could attract more scrutiny from regulators
and government officials, which have grown increasingly interested in
whether Airbnb's rental-sharing customers are breaking the law.
In May, the New York state attorney general's office won a case in
which Airbnb was required to hand over anonymous data on a host of its
users.
In April, Airbnb closed a US$450-million (S$558-million) round of
venture financing, valuing the start-up at US$10 billion. The company
has raised nearly US$750 million to date.
