NEW DELHI: Airbnb for Business was launched in 2014 to make travel for work easier.
Since then, we've seen significant changes in not only the way people travel for business but in the ways people get work done. To reflect these changes, we recently renamed our professional community as Airbnb for work to better encompass the unique benefits only Airbnb can offer today's modern workforce.
'Airbnb for Work', over the period of time has witnessed exponential growth. Over 7,00,000 companies across the globe now use Airbnb for business travel.
A little more than a year ago, we revealed that employees from more than 250,000 companies around the world had signed up to use Airbnb for Work. Today, that number has more than doubled -- to date, nearly 700,000 companies across the globe have had employees sign up and book with Airbnb for Work. Of all these companies, more than 275,000 of them are directly engaged with Airbnb to help manage their travel.
The APAC region has been witnessing a large quantum of growth in Airbnb for Work bookings with an 85% YoY growth. Experiencing phenomenal growth in bookings, India emerged as the fastest growing market globally with the largest spend on Work trips followed by Germany and Australia respectively according to Concur data.
"With Airbnb, business travelers have the comfort and convenience of staying at a home anywhere in the world even if it's just for one night. Currently, almost 15% percent of all bookings on Airbnb are for business travel. Indian Business travelers showed fastest growth is Airbnb spends is testimony to the growth we are witnessing in the Indian market as more corporates choose Airbnb as their preferred accommodation partner," said Country Manager, Airbnb - India, Amanpreet Bajaj.
"Paying attention to one's health and fitness regime when travelling for work isn't easy. For me, being fit is an intrinsic part of who I am today and I truly believe that mental fitness is as important as being physically fit - maybe even more. Travelling with Airbnb gives me the accessibility and ease to follow my routine even when I'm on the move without compromising on my health," said Actor Milind Soman who was recently a part of the Airbnb event.
In tandem with this growth, the company is also seeing interesting trends in the way people travel for work with Airbnb:
• Bleisure (combining business trips with leisure stays) - we continue to see people tack on weekend days to explore the cities they're traveling to. More than 30% of Airbnb for Work bookings in the past year include at least one weekend night.
• "Traditional" business trips - a year ago, the average trip on Airbnb was six nights or more; today, the average stay with Airbnb for Work is about five days, and the fastest growing segment of trips is three nights or less. Business travelers are increasingly using Airbnb for shorter trips, for which they were booking hotels in the past.
• Collaboration - nearly 60 percent of Airbnb for Work trips in the last year had more than one guest. Within these, nearly 40 percent had three or more guests highlighting that more teams are traveling together to bond and collaborate.
• Mobility - we're seeing extended stays and relocations being booked on Airbnb for many different reasons and lengths of time -- ranging from long business trips or training sessions that require several weeks away, to on-site projects that can last several months to a year. In the past year alone, we've seen stays with Airbnb for Work 14 days or longer grow nearly 3X.