Travellers mixing business with leisure more, says Airbnb

Rental accommodation giant has introduced new booking tool for business travel. Continue reading →

More than half of business trips made on Airbnb last year included a Saturday night stay, prompting the rental accommodation platform to conclude that the lines are becoming more blurred between business and leisure travel.

Airbnb has unveiled a new search and booking tool which allows users to filter results to only see business travel-ready listings.

The company took more than 250,000 bookings for business trips in 2016, in more than 230 countries, tripling the number of business trips made on Airbnb the previous year.

Now, nearly 10% of trips taken on Airbnb are business-related.

To use the new business-focussed booking tool, users must link their work email to their Airbnb account. In 2017, it also plans to launch tools that will make re-booking business travel-ready accommodation easier – the details of which are yet to be announced.

In a blog post accompanying the news, the firm said: “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.

“Life shouldn’t stop because you’re travelling for work.”