Airbnb now the choice for business travel

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll be fairly familiar with Airbnb. New information released by the company shows that business is increasingly turning to the community-based service as the concept of ‘business leisure’ goes mainstream.

Airbnb for Business was launched last July and provides a free dashboard that allows companies to coordinate the booking process more easily, streamlining payment and giving travel managers the ability to offer a wider array of accommodation.

According to research commissioned by Airbnb with CWT Solutions, companies using the service save 30% (on average) over traditional accommodation options. The study also revealed that business travellers stay twice as long (an average of 6.8 days per trip), which shows that more are mixing business with pleasure and staying a couple of days to explore. Bookings suggest that team travel is on the increase and more than 35% of bookings are for two or more people. 45% of business travel is international, with the top destinations being London, Milan and Tokyo.

“Since introducing Airbnb for Business, we’ve seen the number of companies using it grow tenfold,” said Chip Conley, head of global hospitality and strategy at Airbnb.

“Businesses have clearly been longing for a better way to manage their employees’ travel needs and business travellers seem eager for change from the traditional business travel accommodations.”

In the six months since launch, more than 5000 businesses have completed bookings by more than 50,000 employees according to the company.