Having stolen a march on the hotel space, Airbnb is now finding new opportunities in business travel. Andrew Hennigan reports

By connecting individual property owners and leisure travelers, Airbnb has disrupted the hotel and holiday lets business, forever changing the travel landscape and prompting lawmakers to work on frameworks that accommodate this model. In a win for Airbnb this week, however, voters in the city of San Francisco rejected a ballot measure that would have limited short-term housing rentals to 75 nights a year. One of the major criticisms, brought by threatened hotel groups among others, has been that Airbnb is driving up short-term rentals and housing costs, which are already extortionate in the city. 

So with its original model in tact the firm is increasingly toeing the party line by offering to pay taxes in certain cities like Paris. Airbnb is now setting sights on the business travel space. The initial target - business travelers from smaller firms who are choosing Airbnb in place of hotels to save money, in the first instance, but for a growing number of reasons.

Enter Airbnb Business Travel<, which provides company friendly features that make reservations more compatible with the needs of companies. For today’s business traveler, many of whom want business travel to mirror leisure travel, the new service makes it easier to find and book appropriate listings and expense it to their employers. For employers, Airbnb also provides tools for corporate travel managers that makes itineraries clearly visible, houses all financial data in one place and offers a centralised billing system.

Airbnb launched Business Travel in 2014 based on feedback from customers. At the time, nearly 10% of were already using it for business. Today over a thousand companies have signed up, ranging from startups to Fortune 1000 companies like Google. Airbnb has found that business travelers are especially interested in larger homes, sometimes to take family members when combining work and pleasure and sometimes for offsite team meetings. The average stay is six to eight days, suggesting that it doesn’t replace the quick one-night business hotel stay.

Some within the hotel industry are not entirely happy with the trend towards shared-economy alternatives. At the American Hotel & Lodging Association, senior VP Vanessa Sinders raises widespread concerns about creating a level playing field.

“Our members thrive in a highly competitive business but there are some players in the short-term rental market who are effectively running illegal hotels,” says Sinders. Her argument is that guests’ safety might be compromised, the character of residential areas endangered and taxes avoided.

Hotels step up to the plate  

But some hotel chains are reacting in a different way. Earlier this year, for example, the Financial Times reported that Hyatt, Wyndham and InterContinental Hotel Group had all invested in home-sharing startups. Hyatt, for example, is one of the investors of OneFineStay, a UK-based home sharing service that specialises in carefully audited high-end properties in London, Los Angeles, New York and Paris. The company was created in 2009 when co-founder and CEO Greg Marsh noted the contrast between the empty houses of Mayfair and his dreary hotel room.

Perhaps what is most interesting about Airbnb-style business travel is that it has actually uncovered needs that traditional hotels were not addressing very effectively. Some people are still using Airbnb simply to save money, but many others are looking for a space for an offsite meeting in a convivial environment or for a room in a city centre when every hotel is booked solid. And with people increasingly combining business with pleasure, some just want to bring the family along too for an extended stay.

The trend has not been missed by the hotel industry, which today is focusing more on the development of boutique and select service hotels. “These properties are the leading design among the latest hotel construction projects, offering amenities that attract millennial and next generation guests,” says Sinders.

Property owners who already rent listings on Airbnb are happy with this emerging trend. Why? Because business travellers appeal tend to book on weekdays when leisure travel is less common, and are likely to be much quieter and better behaved.

Needless to say, there are now third parties producing guides for property owners explaining how they can appeal more to business travelers. ‘How to Target Business Travellers on Airbnb’, for example, makes interesting reading for competitors!