Why Airbnb wants to target more executives with its new business model
With over 1,000,000 listings in 34,000 cities and 190 countries, Airbnb has steadily been growing since its inception in 2008.
Originally launched as a home-rental company, Airbnb launched a corporate program last summer and now has over 250 companies signed with them to provide accommodations, according to Time. Google, Salesforce.com, SoundCloud and Vox Media are among those already on board.
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In the hopes of connecting with more businesses, Airbnb has recently rolled out a better dashboard of tools, dubbed Airbnb for Business, which will help company managers keep better track of employee bookings and billing.
Airbnb is currently valued at more than $25 billion and is expected to make $900 million in revenue this year, according to Fortune, so going after the business travel market is more than likely to add another stream of recurring revenue as companies book travel fairly frequently.
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Airbnb says about 10 percent of rentals are from businesses, comparable to what it was a year ago. Still, the company sees a big opportunity. U.S. business travel spending is expected to reach $302.7 billion by the end of 2015, and climb 5.4 percent next year, according to research from the Global Business Travel Association and Visa.
“Corporate travel is a big part of the travel pie; it's worth a lot of money,” Nathan Blecharczyk, chief technology officer and co-founder of Airbnb, told Bloomberg. “We're further along there on our leisure side than our business side.”
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