Turning the pandemic frown upside down, Airbnb is using its strong position to capitalize on trends around remote work, nomadic lifestyles, and staying well connected as work and play blend.
Filling out some details and teasing others, Airbnb Co-Founder and CEO Brian Chesky used the home sharing platform’s fourth-quarter and full-year 2021 earnings announcement Tuesday (Feb. 15) to talk about how pandemic patterns are reshaping guest and host experiences this year.
Revelations about 2022 began in November with the company touting its new “Live Anywhere” mantra arising from booking changes observed during the pandemic, chiefly that 20% of the stays are now one month or more, with long-term says the platform’s fastest-growing category.
Remote work is having more of an impact on how Airbnb locations are searched for and valued.
Travelers used Airbnb’s “Wi-Fi” search filter more than 288 million times last year while Wi-Fi and pets-allowed searches rose 270%, showing that long-term blended live/work stays are intended, leading to the Airbnb Verified Wi-Fi feature enabling hosts to test Wi-Fi speeds and guests to be guaranteed strong internet connections to power remote blended staycations.
In a Q4 and full-year 2021 shareholder letter Airbnb said, “Over the last two years, we have seen the average trip length increase by approximately 15%, with stays of more than seven days now representing nearly half of all gross nights booked.”
Stays of 28 nights or more “accounted for 22% of gross nights booked in Q4, up 16% from Q4 2019,” the letter stated
See also: With US Travel Ban Lifted, Cities, Hotels, Homeshares Compete for Int’l Tourists
In its roadmap released Feb. 7, the company said it expects to host “more than 1 billion annual guests by 2028” and added four new property types — Vacation Home, Unique, B&B, and Boutiques — to its selection of Entire Home, Private Room and Shared Space listings.
Chesky announced in January that he himself will “live on Airbnb” in 2022, spending time in various listings and locales, noting that “the share of Airbnb long-term stay bookers who used their stays to lead a nomadic lifestyle grew from 2020 to 2021 — from 9% to 12%.”
Read also: Airbnb CEO Plans to Work Remotely From Company Listings
During a live presentation, Chesky talked about upgrades to Airbnb’s Superhost program, recognizing the highest rated and “most iconic” 400,000 of these hosts and properties and announcing “an expansion of the program to offer 14 new and updated benefits including better exposure, custom URLs and exclusive benefits on smart home products.”
The “Ask a Superhost” initiative offers “1:1 support from our Superhosts” to potential new hosts, while Chesky told analysts that the “I’m Flexible” feature introduced in Q1 2021 has already been used 800 million times.
A rising recovery lifts all boats, and as goes Airbnb, so goes its hosts.
Per its earnings release, the company said, “Our Host community is larger than ever, with 6 million active listings at the end of 2021,” adding that hosts earned “a record $34 billion in 2021.”
Airbnb also said “Growth in Host supply has followed the rebound in guest demand, with global total active listings consistently growing quarter over quarter since Q1 2021. We continue to see the greatest growth in supply where we see the greatest growth in demand, including active listings growth of 20% year over year in non-urban destinations in North America.”
See also: Airbnb’s Data Sharing, Rental ‘Blacklist’ Signal Drive to Secure Platforms
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