Airbnb is making a renewed push into renting single rooms in a nod to its beginnings and a realization that renting an entire house is too expensive for many travelers, especially younger ones.
The short-term rental company rolled out a new offering Wednesday that it calls Airbnb Rooms. Guests can rent a room in the same house or apartment as their host at prices that Airbnb says will average $67 a night.
“It is an admission that travelers care more about affordability than they did a year ago," said CEO Brian Chesky.
Airbnb has always listed single rooms in houses and apartments. The company said the new offering will give more biographical information about hosts, and consumers can sort listings to learn details including whether their bedroom door locks and the bathroom is private or shared.
It's a throwback to the original concept that Chesky and Joe Gebbia — now chairman of Airbnb — had in 2007, when they took guests in their San Francisco apartment to help pay the rent. Since then, Airbnb listings have shifted toward whole houses, and prices have soared, to an average daily rate of $153 late last year.
“This is going to be especially popular for the next generation of travelers,” Chesky said of the new offering. "The average Gen Z traveler wants to pay less than $100 a night.” (Generation Z is usually defined as people born between roughly the mid-1990s and 2010.)
It's an interesting gambit. During the pandemic, Airbnb took business from hotels because travelers wanted rentals where they could avoid contact with strangers. Rival Vrbo, owned by Expedia, is still running advertisements bragging that it only rents whole houses.
Airbnb made $1.9 billion last year — the first full-year profit in its history — on higher bookings and revenue. Analysts expect the San Francisco company to be even more profitable this year.
Airbnb has had its stumbles too. Resistance to high cleaning fees led the company to change the way prices are displayed in November, which it says will rein in runaway fees. Airbnb declined to provide figures when asked if fees have dropped.
And social media posts about long checkout instructions went viral. Some hosts asked guests to perform tasks such as taking out the trash and laundering the sheets — even though the guests were paying a hefty cleaning fee.
Airbnb said it will let consumers see checkout lists before they book. It is also tweaking the hosting side of the application to nudge owners against adding chores that could lead to poor reviews and get them booted off the platform.
“In six months to a year, there should be a material reduction in onerous checkout tasks,” Chesky said. “This should hopefully not be a meme anymore.”
President Donald Trump has fired one of two Democratic members of the U.S. Surface Transportation Board to break a 2-2 tie ahead of the board considering the largest railroad merger ever proposed.
Ford is recalling more than 355,000 of its pickup trucks across the U.S. because of an instrument panel display failure that’s resulted in critical information, like warning lights and vehicle speed, not showing up on the dashboard.
Nvidia reported a 56% increase in second-quarter revenue and a 59% rise in net income compared to a year ago.
The Rev. Al Sharpton is set to lead a protest march on Wall Street to urge corporate America to resist the Trump administration’s campaign to roll back diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. The New York civil rights leader will join clergy, labor and community leaders Thursday in a demonstration through Manhattan’s Financial District that’s timed with the anniversary of the Civil Rights-era March on Washington in 1963. Sharpton called DEI the “civil rights fight of our generation." He and other Black leaders have called for boycotting American retailers that scaled backed policies and programs aimed at bolstering diversity and reducing discrimination in their ranks.
President Donald Trump's administration last month awarded a $1.2 billion contract to build and operate what's expected to become the nation’s largest immigration detention complex to a tiny Virginia firm with no experience running correction facilities.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos claims audiences don't want to watch Netflix movies in theaters, but that seems not to be the case recently.
Chipmaker Nvidia is poised to release a quarterly report that could provide a better sense of whether the stock market has been riding an overhyped artificial intelligence bubble or is being propelled by a technological boom that’s still gathering momentum.
Cracker Barrel said late Tuesday it’s returning to its old logo after critics — including President Donald Trump — protested the company’s plan to modernize.
Low-value imports are losing their duty-free status in the U.S. this week as part of President Donald Trump's agenda for making the nation less dependent on foreign goods. A widely used customs exemption for international shipments worth $800 or less is set to end starting on Friday. Trump already ended the “de minimis” rule for inexpensive items sent from China and Hong Kong, but having to pay import taxes on small parcels from everywhere else likely will be a big change for some small businesses and online shoppers. Purchases that previously entered the U.S. without needing to clear customs will be subject to the origin country’s tariff rate, which can range from 10% to 50%.
Southwest Airlines will soon require plus-size travelers to pay for an extra seat in advance if they can't fit within the armrests of one seat. This change is part of several updates the airline is making. The new rule starts on Jan. 27, the same day Southwest begins assigning seats. Currently, plus-size passengers can pay for an extra seat in advance and later get a refund, or request a free extra seat at the airport. Under the new policy, refunds are still possible but not guaranteed. Southwest said in a statement it is updating policies to prepare for assigned seating next year.
