Airbnb shows how business and leisure travel is going mainstream

Published on : Monday, January 25, 2016

Airbnb, the leading community driven hospitality company, unveiled some of the top trends that show how mixing business and liesure travel is going mainstream for business travelers in 2016, and highlighting top destinations and travel habits. Key findings based on both analyzing trends on Airbnb and a study developed by CWT Solutions Group with Airbnb include:

• Companies that use Airbnb for business travel save on average 30 percent over traditional accommodations;

• Business travelers stay twice as long on Airbnb;

• Travel with the team, over 35 percent of bookings were for two or more travelers;

• 45 percent of business travel was international, with travel to more than 2,000 cities in over 120 countries;

• Top destinations included London, Milan, and Tokyo.

Airbnb for Business is now used by thousands of companies for their employee travel, including Vox Media, and Sixt Rental Car. The free dashboard, which launched last July, allows companies to coordinate the booking process more easily, streamline payments and gives travel managers the ability to offer a wider array of accommodations. Employees who have booked with Airbnb saved their companies an average of 30 percent more than traditional accommodations.

“Since introducing Airbnb for Business, we’ve seen the number of companies using it grow enormously,” 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 travelers seem eager for change from the traditional business travel accommodations.”

With Airbnb’s far-reaching global network, 45 percent of Airbnb for Business trips are international. Business travelers visited more than 2,000 cities in over 120 countries. The average length of a business traveler’s stay on Airbnb was twice as long as stays in traditional accommodations, at 6.8 days per trip, which shows that more and more business travelers are staying the weekend, mixing business with pleasure, and getting to know a new city or neighborhood they’ve never visited.

In the six months since launch, more than 50,000 employees of more than 5,000 businesses have completed bookings. San Francisco tops the list as the most heavily traveled destination for business, followed by several economic hubs in the United States and Europe.

The top 10 cities for business trips on Airbnb are:

• San Francisco, CA

 

• London, UK

 

• New York City, NY

 

• Paris, France

 

• Los Angeles, CA

 

• Milan, Italy

 

• Mountain View, CA

 

• Austin, TX

 

• Seattle, WA

 

• Tokyo, Japan

Companies are also relying on Airbnb for longer-haul travel. Six of the 10 most commonly traversed routes are long-distance trips of more than 1,700 miles, including bi-coastal jaunts and international adventures.

More than 17 percent of travelers stayed in an Airbnb in more than one city. Some of Airbnb’s most fervent fans stayed in listings in over 15 cities across the globe. One frequent business traveler has visited nine countries on four continents, including Brazil, Turkey, Poland, China, and Mexico. Another emerging trend is that business travelers are more frequently using Airbnb to explore new cities before deciding whether to relocate for work. The longest single Airbnb for Business Travel booking was over 290 days.