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12•08•19 Welcome to the latest Short Term Rentalz weekly newsletter!
• In the latest decisive move by Airbnb, the firm has acquired extended stay accommodation platform Urbandoor to expand its Airbnb for Work offering.
San Francisco-based Urbandoor, founded in 2015 by Erik Eccles, Benjamin Renaud and Zach Chandler, offers units in multifamily buildings to corporate travellers. Its portfolio includes buildings in more than 1,500 cities in over 60 countries around the world.
Urbandoor will also supplement the existing Airbnb for Work offering, which is used by more than 500,000 companies worldwide to help manage their business travel.
The development marks the latest move by Airbnb for Work to facilitate work-friendly stays for corporate travellers, having recently partnered with travel management company, Orbit World Travel, in New Zealand, and launched a work trip toggle through which users can customise their search results for work travel and make more informed booking decisions.
Meanwhile, Airbnb hopes the deal will help it to make the most of Urbandoor's strategic relationships with multifamily owners and operators, like Greystar (with which Urbandoor partnered in 2017) so it can enhance its own provisions of authentic, local experiences for travellers.
“Joining Urbandoor with Airbnb accelerates the mission to create a seamless, global online corporate housing marketplace," said Greystar CEO Bob Faith. "Airbnb and the sharing economy are here to stay and we are looking forward to finding additional ways to create value for our clients.”
Another firm to make a big step in the accommodation industry this week was media and content startup, Culture Trip, which announced the soft launch of its own OTA platform.
Following an $80 million raise to develop its own travel business, Culture Trip has started the roll out of booking capability integrated into its curated content. The soft launch went live with a “contextualised” accommodation-only booking experience for users consuming articles and content related to 12 destinations.
Senior vice president of travel, Andy Washington, said the firm planned to remain true to its content-based approach by telling stories about particular properties, with contributions from local writers.
“We are giving property owners a completely different approach which is not about price or rate. We give them something about what makes them special,” he added.
Culture Trip aims to scale up the number of destinations it offers for hotel bookings to 40 and 10,000 properties, from the 120 in 12 destinations with which it has just launched.
If you have a story you want us to tell the industry, please click here and get involved with the community by commenting on our news stories on our website.
Paul Stevens, reporter
paul@internationalhospitality.media
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UPCOMING EVENTS
19 September 2019
Dubai, MEA
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