The world of travel continues to change. People are hitting the road more than ever, and tend to place greater value on unique, local experiences over formulaic itineraries. This wanderlust trend is also showing up in the way people approach business travel. The lines between business and leisure travel are blurring; more and more of us are combining business trips with weekend stays. In fact, more than 50 percent of business trips on Airbnb in 2016 included a Saturday night.
But, business travel doesn’t have to be all about being a road warrior. It should be more about working the way you live. Life shouldn’t stop because you’re travelling for work. We know your first priority is to crush that pitch meeting, but you also want to explore a city. With Airbnb, you can do both.
Airbnb gives travellers a chance to live in a city when travelling for work. This is one of the reasons employees from more than 250,000 companies – in over 230 countries and territories – have signed up to use Airbnb for work. In 2016 alone, the number of business trips on Airbnb tripled. And today, nearly 10 percent of trips on Airbnb are for work.
With all this growth comes our continued commitment to making it easier to travel for work with Airbnb. Living and working like a local doesn’t have to come at the expense of convenience.
In 2016, there were a number of improvements to make business travel easier and more convenient.
- launched a third-party booking tool so both the employee who is managing travel and the employee who is taking the trip can book, make changes to the reservation, and message the Airbnb host with questions about the listing or neighborhood.
- rolled out the ability to filter search results to highlight listings with self check-in – where guests can access listings using a key lockbox, smartlock, keypad, or doorman any time after the designated check-in time on their arrival date.
- introduced business-friendly receipts – streamlining the expense process – and kicked off integrations and partnerships with travel management companies (TMCs) and duty of care providers.
- grew the number of business travel ready listings – homes that have the essential amenities and services a business traveller needs, like WiFi, laptop-friendly workspaces and self check-in – to more than 150,000 globally
