On May 24, Airbnb announced exciting new remote work features. The new feature will allow potential guests to look for accommodation without mentioning exact destinations or dates. These functions will go live on June 30th, 2021.
People Will Move a Lot More than Before
Airbnb had started testing a version of the new flexible dates search option in January 2021. People were able to expand their date range option by one, three or seven days. According to Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, this function has been used a 100 million times since the new feature was made available to people in January.
Airbnb has noticed the following trends.
- Trips to low-density urban areas and small towns has increased.
- This is a jump from 26% in 2018 to 35% in 2021.
- 25% of Airbnb bookings were stays that were longer than 28 days in the first quarter of 2021.
“People aren’t just traveling on Airbnb, they’re now living on Airbnb. People are getting vaccinated, travel restrictions are lifting. People want to connect, so travel is coming back. In fact, we believe this will be the biggest travel rebound in a century.”Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO
Airbnb also announced that the number of customer service agents has been doubled and they’ve also expanded the number of languages for host support.
Airbnb laid off 1,900 people at the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 as the bookings had dropped drastically, affecting their business. With the surge in remote work and the introduction of these new remote work features, the future looks positive.
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