New service – called Trips – offers travellers chance to create itineraries that afford a more authentic local experience

This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

Airbnb has launched a new programme called Trips, with the aim of transforming itself into a travel company.

The move marks the most significant expansion since the company was founded eight years ago as a peer-to-peer property rental service.



Airbnb’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, kicked off a three-day event in Los Angeles on Thursday at which he said Airbnb would offer travellers the opportunity to create itineraries for hours or days that afford a more authentic local experience.

“If you want to travel, you basically end up on a research project,” Chesky said. “We want to fix this.”

The service, Chesky said, is available now as an upgrade to the Airbnb app in four US cities – Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami and San Francisco – and eight other cities – Cape Town, Florence, Havana, London, Nairobi, Paris, Seoul and Tokyo. They will be in more than 50 cities next year, Chesky said.

The travel service could help Airbnb move away from being strictly a home-rental business and to justify its $30bn (£24bn) valuation, which far exceeds the worth of any hotel company.

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It also dovetails with a campaign the company launched earlier this year to encourage travellers to skip the big tourist sites and hotels, opting instead to live like locals when abroad.

The travel service comes as the company faces regulatory crackdowns around the world, with cities including Amsterdam, Berlin and New York working to limit short-term rentals that hinder housing stock in tight rental markets.

Last month, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, signed a law that would place new regulations on online home rental companies such as Airbnb.

Existing New York state law bars most urban apartment-dwellers from renting out their flats for less than 30 days if they are not present.

The law recently passed by the state legislature would bar even advertising a rental that violates that existing law, which could help regulators crack down on Airbnb itself in addition to the users of its service.

On Thursday, a US judge said Airbnb and the city of San Francisco must work harder to resolve a court case over an ordinance forbidding the company from taking bookings from hosts who have not registered their homes.

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District Judge James Donato in San Francisco said he would issue an order prohibiting the city from enforcing the ordinance to give both sides more time to work on a fair way to enforce the local law.

The San Francisco ordinance, enacted in August, makes it illegal for Airbnb to collect fees for providing booking services for rentals not properly registered with the city.

Airbnb makes money by charging a service fee on bookings. Airbnb contended that the ordinance violated a broad federal law that protects internet companies from liability for content posted on their platforms.