More comforts means higher prices: the average nightly rate of an Airbnb Plus home is $200, compared with the $100 average rate per night for a standard listing.

Mr. Chesky said that the quality standards were established after a team of employees interviewed several hundred of Airbnb’s top-rated hosts. “We asked them what they did to earn those ratings and discovered that they all had well-stocked homes and delivered a consistent experience to their guests,” he said.

Aspiring hosts must apply to have their homes accepted into Airbnb Plus, and once they do, the company will send a local photographer — many of whom are Airbnb hosts themselves — to inspect their properties and determine if they meet the required standards.

Airbnb’s lack of quality control has at times been problematic for the company, according to Dr. Rummy Pandit, the executive director of the Lloyd D. Levenson Institute of Gaming, Hospitality and Tourism at Stockton University in New Jersey. “It is such a large and dispersed network that there have been challenges in managing a level of standardization,” he said. For this reason, Dr. Pandit said, the new Plus brand is a smart business move. “There is an untapped segment of travelers who haven’t used Airbnb because they don’t like surprises, but now, they may be open to booking a stay through the site,” he said.

In addition to Airbnb Plus, the company’s main site now will have four new property types — boutique hotels, bed-and-breakfasts, vacation homes and distinctive properties such as tree houses and yurts. These are in addition to the three it already has — shared spaces, private rooms and entire homes. The listings in these categories are already on the site, but classifying them makes them easier for travelers to find, Mr. Chesky said. Collections, properties suited for a certain demographic of travelers like families and honeymooners, is also debuting today.

Next up, in late spring, Airbnb will introduce Beyond by Airbnb, a collection of high-end homes for luxury-seeking travelers. This is following its purchase last year of the home rental company Luxury Retreats. “We’re still affordable, but we want to offer another tier of homes to travelers who want a more upscale experience,” Mr. Chesky said.

HomeAway, another home rental company, has listings of more than two million homes in 190 countries and launched a high-end division, Luxury Rentals from HomeAway, in 2013 with 4,000 listings. That number has since grown to more than 11,400 listings in 80 countries.