A new Airbnb for a new world of travel: Launching the biggest change to the platform in a decade

Last year, we released 150 upgrades to improve every aspect of the Airbnb service. Today, we are launching the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade, including:

• Airbnb Categories – A new way to search that makes it easy to discover millions of homes you never knew existed.
• Split Stays – An innovative feature that provides more options for longer stays by splitting your trip between two homes.
• AirCover for guests – The most comprehensive protection in travel, included for free with every stay.

“The way people travel has changed forever. That’s why we’re introducing the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade,” said Brian Chesky, CEO and Co-Founder of Airbnb. 

“First, people are more flexible about where they live and work, so we’ve designed a new way to search with Airbnb Categories. Second, people are taking longer trips, so we created Split Stays to give you more options by splitting your trip between two homes. And third, we’re introducing AirCover for guests, giving you the confidence to book knowing that Airbnb’s got your back.” 

Airbnb Categories

Millions of people are now more flexible about where they live and work. But travel search has been the same for 25 years — you enter a location and dates into a search box. Most of us can only think of a few dozen cities to type into the search box, but there are Airbnbs in 100,000 towns and cities around the world.

That’s why we’re introducing a new way to search designed around Airbnb Categories, making it easy to discover millions of unique homes you never knew existed. When you open Airbnb, you’re presented with 56 categories that organize homes based on their style, location, or proximity to a travel activity. When you search for a destination, your search results are also organized by categories that are relevant to that destination. As you view different categories, the map intelligently zooms to show you where the homes are located. 

To create Airbnb Categories, we evaluate millions of homes using machine learning to analyze titles, written descriptions, photo captions, structured data from Hosts, and reviews from guests. Members of Airbnb’s curation team review listings and hand-pick featured photos — so if a listing is in the Amazing Pools Category, the first photo shows a pool. Then, each category goes through a final check to help ensure consistency and photo quality.

The 56 Airbnb Categories include more than 4 million unique homes that are made possible by our Hosts all around the world. Airbnb Categories organize homes by what makes them unique, which helps people discover places they wouldn’t have otherwise found. This can help alleviate over-tourism by redistributing travel to new locations beyond the same popular destinations.

Split Stays

In the last three months, nearly half of nights booked on Airbnb were for trips of a week or more. That’s why we created Split Stays, an innovative feature that splits your trip between two homes. With Split Stays, you will typically see around 40% more listings when searching for longer stays.

When searching a specific destination, Split Stays automatically appear in your search results. They also appear within 14 categories — including Camping, National Parks, Skiing, and Surfing — to inspire you to stay in two destinations as part of a longer trip. For example, when browsing the Skiing Category, Split Stays might suggest a pair of homes near Thredbo and Mt. Hotham.

When viewing Split Stays on a map, an animated line visually connects the two homes to show you the distance between them and the sequence of the stays. Once you select a Split Stay, you’re guided through an easy-to-use interface to book each stay, one home at a time.

AirCover for guests

This northern summer and southern winter, millions of people will travel for the first time since the start of the pandemic. That’s why we created AirCover, the most comprehensive protection in travel. AirCover is always included and always free, and it represents the biggest upgrade to Airbnb customer service in a decade.

With AirCover, you’re covered by four protections every time you stay on Airbnb: 

• Booking Protection Guarantee – In the unlikely event a Host needs to cancel your booking within 30 days of check-in, we’ll find you a similar or better home, or we’ll refund you.
• Check-In Guarantee – If you can’t check into your home and the Host cannot resolve the issue, we’ll find you a similar or better home for the length of your original stay, or we’ll refund you.
• Get-What-You-Booked Guarantee – If at any time during your stay you find your listing isn’t as advertised — for example, the refrigerator stops working and your Host can’t easily fix it, or there are fewer bedrooms than listed — you’ll have three days to report it and we’ll find you a similar or better home, or we’ll refund you.
• 24-hour Safety Line – If you ever feel unsafe, you’ll get priority access to specially-trained safety agents, day or night.

AirCover has been designed directly into the Airbnb app and website, making it easy for you to contact an agent and resolve issues quickly. We created a team of specially trained agents for last-minute rebooking assistance. We also significantly expanded our 24-hour safety line to cover 16 languages.

Available in Australia and New Zealand later this week

Airbnb’s redesigned app and website with over 50 categories of unique homes, the innovative Split Stays feature, and AirCover for guests will be available worldwide this week. Guests can search by a listing’s style, location, or activity type – like cabins, national parks, or skiing. Style  categories include over 1.5 million homes with pools, 240,000 cabins, 150,000 farms and 60,000 tiny homes  worldwide – plus much, much more. Location categories can help guests search from beaches to deserts, or even 2,000 islands; while activity categories allow them to find that perfect camping, surfing, or ski in/ski out spot.

For more information on the new Airbnb for a new world of travel, please
visit www.airbnb.com/2022-summer.

The world has changed, and in 2022 people are traveling differently than they ever have before – check out the top trends for summer travel.

Airbnb 2022 Release Highlights (Global)

With a new way to search designed around Airbnb Categories, the innovative Split Stays feature, and AirCover for guests, this launch represents the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade.

• The world has changed, and in 2022 people are traveling differently than they ever have before. Because of remote work, people are spreading out to thousands of towns and cities. Airbnb guests have already planned stays in over 72,000 cities and towns this northern summer/southern winter. 
• Long-term stays are at an all-time high in Q1 2022, more than doubling in size from Q1 2019, and continue to represent around one in every five nights booked. In addition, nearly half of nights booked on Airbnb in Q1 2022 were for one week or more.
• In today’s world, people are demonstrating increased flexibility about where and when they can travel. Our I’m Flexible search feature introduced just last year has been used over 2 billion times. With increased flexibility, we’ve also seen users book homes in less popular places, not just the usual destinations. In Q1 2022, our top 10 cities represented 8% of revenue, down from 12% in Q1 2019. And when guests diversify their destinations, they also spread Host earnings more widely.
• Unique listings also gained in popularity during the pandemic and through our I’m Flexible search feature. So we’re introducing an all-new site design built around Airbnb Categories that makes it even easier to discover one-of-a-kind of homes you never knew existed. Today Airbnb Categories include more than 4 million unique homes that are made possible by our Hosts around the world. 
• When you visit Airbnb, you are now presented with 56 categories that organize homes into curated collections based on their unique style, location or proximity to travel activity. One new category is Design, a collection of over 20,000 homes chosen for their iconic architecture and interiors. Interest in these homes is growing: Wishlists containing “design” in their title have grown 175% in 2021 compared to 2019; and in all of 2021, unique listings were added to almost 20 million wishlists.
• With guests staying longer and venturing further, we are introducing an innovative new Split Stays feature that splits trips between two homes. With Split Stays, you will typically see around 40% more listings when searching for longer stays.

Airbnb 2022 Northern Summer Travel Trends Highlights (Global)

The period encompassing the northern summer and southern winter will continue to see guests traveling further and staying longer.

Since its launch, Airbnb has empowered guests to collectively travel over 10 million years.

From June-August, the Airbnb community will connect over new travel experiences. In a recent survey, more than 9 in 10 active Airbnb guests are considering traveling this northern summer/southern winter, with most intending to travel. 12% of guests who traveled to Australia in 2021 reported staying there while traveling and working remotely.

Most travel during this period won’t be solo, with the majority expecting to travel with family. When asked why they might use Airbnb to travel during this time, most guests said ‘adventure.’ More than 9 in 10 of surveyed guests also have flexible travel dates at least occasionally.

Trending summer destinations – worldwide by search in Q1 (min 10,000 searches)

1. Bodrum, Turkey
2. Ibiza, Spain
3. Villasimius, Italy
4. Devon, UK
5. Korčula, Croatia
6. San Vito Lo Capo, Italy
7. Nîmes, France
8. Maine, US
9. Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany
10. San Teodoro, Italy

Trending southern winter domestic destinations – by search by Australian guests in Q1 (min 10,000 searches)

1. Springvale, Victoria
2. The Rocks, New South Wales
3. Denmark, Western Australia
4. Pemberton, Western Australia
5. Oberon, New South Wales
6. Cradle Mountain, Tasmania
7. Darlinghurst, New South Wales
8. Bicheno, Tasmania
9. Yallingup, Western Australia
10. Strahan, Tasmania

Trending southern winter domestic destinations – by search by New Zealand guests in Q1 (min 10,000 searches)

1. Lake Tekapo, Canterbury
2. Ohakune, Manawatu-Wanganui
3. Whitianga, Waikato
4. Tekapo, Canterbury
5. Martinborough, Wellington
6. Cardrona, Otago
7. Wanaka, Otago
8. National Park, Manawatu-Wanganui
9. Raglan, Waikato
10. Twizel, Canterbury

Travel Trends for the northern summer and southern winter: 

• Domestic travel is strong and globally, represents more than half of the nights booked in the first quarter of 2022 for June-August stays and exceeds Q1 2019 levels. International travel has recovered to pre-pandemic levels and continues to grow, with more nights booked for international northern summer/southern winter stays compared to Q1 2021. 
• Although guests continue to seek coastal listings for their northern summer/southern winter travel (half of nights are booked at listings within 5 km/3 miles of the coast), nights booked at more inland listings located over 100km/62 miles from the coast have grown over 40% in Q1 2022 compared to Q1 2019. Similarly, nights booked at listings with the smallest population density have grown the most over the same time period.
• Unique travel experiences have increasing appeal to guests: nights booked in the first quarter of 2022 for northern summer/southern winter travel to unique homes are growing 80% compared to 2019. Tiny houses (+173%), barns (+160%), domes (+134%) and treehouses (+116%) have seen particularly strong growth of interest. The countries expected to have the most treehouse stays this summer are: United States, France, Canada, United Kingdom, Costa Rica. 
• Family travel is at an all-time high. The northern summer/southern winter is the busiest season for Airbnb check-ins for travelers including family travel. 
• Older adults (ages 60-90) are the fastest growing age group for nights booked in Q1 for northern summer/southern winter travel compared with the same quarter in 2019.
• In Q1 2022, in-real-life experiences have rebounded past the pre-pandemic levels of Q1 2019. The top categories in the first quarter of 2022 are: food and drink, nature, and sports. The top country for these non-virtual experiences is Italy.

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Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of the “safe harbor” provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995 about us and our industry that involve substantial risks and uncertainties. All statements other than statements of historical facts contained in this press release, including, but not limited to, statements regarding travel trends, the travel industry and the future of travel, the behavior of Hosts and guests and about our future performance, prospects, plans and objectives are forward-looking statements.

In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements because they contain words such as “may,” “will,” “plan,” “expect,” “could,” “potential,” “objective,” or “continues” or the negative of these words or other similar terms or expressions that concern our expectations. Although we believe that we have a reasonable basis for each forward-looking statement contained in this press release, we cannot guarantee that the future results, levels of activity, or events and circumstances reflected in the forward-looking statements will be achieved or occur at all.

Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, uncertainties, assumptions, and other factors that may cause actual results to differ materially from the objectives expressed or implied in this press release. Therefore, you should not rely upon forward-looking statements as predictions of future events. Important factors that could cause actual results to differ materially from those indicated in the forward-looking statements include, but are not limited to, the effects and duration of the evolving COVID-19 pandemic on us, the travel industry, travel trends, and the global economy generally; any further and continued decline or disruption in the travel and hospitality industries or economic downturn; changes in political, business, and economic conditions, including current geopolitical tensions and regional instability; and the other risks listed or described from time to time in Airbnb’s filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (the “SEC”), including Airbnb’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2021, Quarterly Report on Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2022 and subsequent Form 10-Qs and Form 8-Ks, which are, or will be, on file with the SEC and available on the investor relations page of Airbnb’s website.

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