The latest strategy coincides with Airbnb shaping up for a scheduled initial public offering this year or next. The firm is said to be keen to distinguish itself from competitors such as Booking.com and Expedia in an increasingly fragmented industry as letting services become more common.

In particular, chief executive Brian Chesky sees creative content as central to Airbnb's brand moving forward.

Increasingly over the last three years, Airbnb has reportedly been contemplating creating a mini-series and documentaries relating to travel, as well as programmes featuring Airbnb homes, guests and its hosts. Executives see such an approach as an opportunity to entice guests to visit new destinations and alter some of their preconceptions if they are booking with Airbnb for the first time.

One source told Reuters: “Brian wants to create a studio. Let’s do shows, let’s do films, because we want to be travel-everything.”

So far, the San Francisco-based company has worked on a television docu-series called Home for an upcoming streaming service for Apple and last week, it announced it had produced a documentary called Gay Chorus Deep South, which followed San Francisco Gay Men's Chorus on their US tour.

Meanwhile, Kim Kingsley, the co-founder of political news site Politico and manager of Airbnb's content strategy, is believed to be one of the figureheads behind this latest approach.

Last year, Airbnb worked with high-end agency Red State in a project where employees flew over to Europe to film promotional videos for the former's "Experiences" scheme, which highlights activities for guests in the diverse range of destinations around the world.

The source also said: “It’s all part of the efforts to broaden the base to make what they do more mainstream.”

Another company with significant ambitions in 2019 is Rentals United, which this week announced a $4.25m investment from Stella EOC Capital and Howzat Partners. The firm says it will put the funding primarily towards talent acquisition, international expansion and tech advancements.

"This investment round will allow us to build even more tools to help property managers everywhere to improve their marketing and business performance," said Rentals United CEO James Burrows. "The road ahead is a very exciting one," he added.

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Paul Stevens, reporter
paul@internationalhospitality.media

Paul Stevens

Reporter

+44 (0)7393 293643

paul@internationalhospitality.media

George Sell

Editor

+44 (0)7879 652 447

george@internationalhospitality.media

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