How Hosts help small businesses and restaurants thrive
Key Takeaways
- Hosts around the world help support small businesses in their neighborhoods—87% say they recommend local restaurants to guests.
- Guests spend 40% of their total daily spending in the neighborhood of their Airbnb listing and, on average, $50 per day on restaurants.
Key Takeaways
- Hosts around the world help support small businesses in their neighborhoods—87% say they recommend local restaurants to guests.
- Guests spend 40% of their total daily spending in the neighborhood of their Airbnb listing and, on average, $50 per day on restaurants.
One of the best indicators of vibrant neighborhoods is the strength of their small business community. In celebration of Small Business Saturday in the US on November 25, new data from Airbnb demonstrates how Hosts play an important role in helping small businesses and restaurants thrive in cities around the world.
Hosts on Airbnb are often an integral part of the small business community—more than 30 percent of Hosts are small business owners themselves1 and take pride in sharing their favorite shops and restaurants with guests. In the last year, 87 percent of Hosts globally say they’ve recommended local restaurants to guests.2 As a result, Hosts help drive welcome revenue to restaurants with guests spending, on average, $50 per day on restaurants.3
Helping guests discover new neighborhoods and small businesses
Earlier this year, we shared data on how Airbnb and its Host community help spread travel beyond traditional tourist destinations. In 2022, for example, the number of communities globally that welcomed guests on Airbnb increased by over 25 percent compared with five years ago,4 while more than 13,000 cities worldwide received their first booking on Airbnb since March 2020.5
Even within major cities, Hosts on Airbnb help direct guests to neighborhoods without hotels that have not traditionally benefited from tourism. In the US, for example, an analysis of Airbnb and OpenStreetMap data6 found that two-thirds of US Census tracts are home to Airbnb listings but no hotels, where our Hosts are often the primary—if not the only—providers of local accommodation and drivers of local tourism.7
Sharing my favorite restaurants with guests ensures they have an authentic Nashville experience and helps support local businesses—especially ones that are unique to or born out of Nashville. Most of my guests are very pleased with my restaurant recommendations and say they never would have found them if I hadn’t recommended them.
—Mark, Airbnb Host in Nashville, Tennessee
Hosts help ensure neighborhood restaurants feel the positive impact of this increasingly dispersed travel landscape with 84 percent recommending restaurants and cafes in the neighborhood of their Airbnb listing.8 What’s more, guests spend approximately 40 percent of their total daily spending in the neighborhood of their Airbnb listing, allowing more restaurants and small businesses to reap the benefits of tourism than ever before.9