Airbnb's future is not just about travel

At the 2024 Skift Global Forum in New York, the company's CEO said that he hopes to eventually expand beyond just short-term rentals and even travel

“Why would Airbnb just offer homes? Why couldn’t we offer significantly more things? And that’s the future of this company,” Brian Chesky said. “We’re going to take the Airbnb model, and we’re going to bring it to a lot of different categories.” To get there, the company is aiming to consistently launch new lines of business.

Key takeaways

• "We're entering a new phase of the company as we move out of the core perfection phase," Chesky said. "I expect that every year we'll launch two to three things that could eventually generate a billion dollars a year in revenue;
• Airbnb releases products twice a year. The winter release, coming this October, will focus on a new business of matching hosts with property managers, he said. The summer release, coming in May 2025, will focus on expanding the Experiences business and "numerous" other things;
• One of those future areas of expansion will be longer-term stays, Chesky said. About 17% of stays are 30 days or longer, a few percentage points above pre-pandemic levels.

Get the full story at Skift (by subscription only)