Airbnb wants a slice of the billions of dollars spent on corporate travel, and the option filters those that are targeted at the business traveler, as well as offering trip management tools. Business Insider's Biz Carson in her July 20, 2015, article.
With business travel spending projected to rise to $302.7 billion in 2015, Airbnb clearly sees profit to be made by carving out a chunk for itself.
Business travelers already make up 10 percent of the company's rentals, according to Airbnb's business development lead Marc McCabe.
The rental site's first step towards boosting that number is a new dashboard to make it easier for companies to start using the service. Airbnb users are invited to join their employer's group, and the company then has ways to manage bookings for the entire company, including exporting financial data.
As Inc.com, Heather R. Morgan describes it:
The Airbnb for Business dashboard provides a suite of tools for travel managers to help employees book and stay with Airbnb. The program also features business travel-ready listings, with specific amenities that cater to business travelers including 24-hour check in, a designated work space, a curated list of hosts with 5-star reviews, and more.
Airbnb also introduced a new tool is called "Third Party Bookings," which allows coworkers to manage bookings on behalf of others--so in the future, I can have my executive assistant arrange a stay for me.
On top of the usual options, like smoking/no smoking, air conditioning, gym, pool, and wifi, you can also filter for "laptop-friendly workspaces," "suitable for events," "indoor fireplace," and more.
Airbnb hosts often go above and beyond the promised options and provide you with additional perks, such as Netflix accounts, high-tech kitchen appliances, and yes, even artisan goat cheese. The Airbnb I stayed in on my recent trip to Hawaii even had snorkeling gear and boogie boards to use.
