Today I’d like to provide a brief update about our company, our community, and the efforts we’re making to fulfill our mission.
Airbnb's mission is to create a world where everyone can belong anywhere, and we are focused on building an end-to-end travel platform that covers every part of the journey. To achieve this goal, we are focused on building for the future, driving strong sustainable growth, and creating new businesses that will fuel our long-term success.
In 2018, we experienced strong growth across the company. “Our core home business is experiencing strong growth — Airbnb Experiences is now available in more than 1,000 cities — and we continue to optimize our platform to support the expansion and growth of new business segments. At the same time, Airbnb has appointed senior leaders who are focused on investing in growth and long-term profitability.
Airbnb plans to continue building on this momentum in 2019 and beyond.
- Our platform is powered by hosts and guests who are loyal to Airbnb because we treat them as members of a community, not a commodity.
- We have an unparalleled brand and have built a loyal and growing community. One of Google's executives Recently, Airbnb commented that “when it comes to online searches, Airbnb is now the most searched-for accommodation brand.” And Airbnb is becoming increasingly popular among millennials. For example, YouGov BrandIndex ReviewsWhen UK millennials were asked about the brands they had talked about in the past two weeks, nearly 70% named Airbnb.
- Our community has created a truly global network effect. Guests seeking unique accommodations and experiences around the world are There are many hosts on Airbnb who want to host, and that demand creates opportunities for even more hosts.
- Our community offers unique, quality accommodations and experiences that have created new ways to travel that haven't existed before and can't be found anywhere else.
This note won’t explain all of our work, but will provide some select updates about our company and community.
Powered by our community
Airbnb started by offering travelers unique places to stay, and after its best year ever, the business continues to grow.
- Since its founding in 2008, Airbnb expects that by the end of the first quarter of 2019, more than 500 million guests will have registered for Airbnb listings.
- Airbnb hosts and guests have left more than 250 million reviews, and the accumulation of reviews creates a currency of trust that can’t be replicated.
- Airbnb was profitable on an EBITDA basis for the second consecutive year.
- Airbnb continues to offer a wide range of unique accommodations. For example, just for New Year's Eve 2,574 guests stayed in the castle, 1,031 in the treehouse and 121 in the windmill.
Strong management team
Airbnb has built a strong executive team led by co-founder, CEO and head of community Brian Chesky, with a series of key leaders who joined the company or took on new roles in 2018.
- Greg Greeley, President of Homes, is leading a strong and aggressive plan to support the hosts that have always been Airbnb's pillars and expand the lodging offering into new areas.
- COO Belinda Johnson has used her extensive knowledge of the company to design an operating system that drives efficiencies and enables the company to continue to serve its growing community. In this role, Johnson leads the Airbnb Customer Experience, Payments, and Trust & Safety teams, three key functions that drive Airbnb's growth.
- CTO Ari Balogh leads engineering across infrastructure, information security, and IT, as well as payments, trust, and community support. This work is essential to ensure our platform can continue to scale existing business units and support new ones.
- CFO Dave Stephenson joined Airbnb in January and will use his experience growing large businesses quickly to ensure the company is investing in both growth and long-term profitability.
- Ken Chenault and Ann Mather joined the board as Airbnb’s first unaffiliated, independent directors.
Airbnb for work
Travelers want to feel like they belong in the communities they visit, even when they're on a business trip. Employers are listening and taking action. To date, more than 300,000 businesses work directly with Airbnb to help them manage their travel.
Business travelers are also increasingly using Airbnb for shorter trips where they would have previously booked a hotel. A year ago, the average length of a trip on Airbnb for Work was six nights or more. Today, the average stay on Airbnb for Work is about five days, and the fastest growing trip length is three nights or less.
We know that Airbnb has unique capabilities beyond business travel to help companies attract, retain, and motivate talent. In 2018, Airbnb for Work expanded beyond business travel to team building, offsite meetings, conferences, and relocations. Only 25% of employees within a company travel for work. Our expansion in 2018 created an opportunity to bring the 75% who don't travel onto the Airbnb platform and community.
Strong partnerships with policymakers
Airbnb treats policymakers and regulators as allies, not enemies, and has built partnerships with governments and organizations around the world. To date, we've collected and remitted more than $1 billion in hotel and tourism taxes, and recently signed new agreements with communities in Germany, Italy, Switzerland, and more. And we continue to work with governments to enact smart rules for home sharing in cities and countries around the world. Notable highlights include:
- Los Angeles: The City Council voted to legalize home-sharing, paving the way for regulating the city's long-running vacation rental market.
- Seattle: The city, one of Airbnb's largest U.S. markets, will implement short-term rental rules passed in late 2017, legalizing both home sharing and vacation rentals citywide.
- France: Airbnb has been collecting and remitting taxes in France since 2015, and expanded the initiative to more than 23,000 French cities in 2018. Airbnb also reached a unilateral agreement with the French government and other accommodation platforms on new measures to promote responsible home-sharing, which the government described as “a concrete step to benefit French families.”
- New South Wales (Sydney)Airbnb's most popular destination market in Australia established Progressive Rules for Home Sharing In June.
- South Korea: South Korean governmentAnnouncementHe intends to amend the Tourism Promotion Act (TPA) to allow urban residents to share housing with domestic tourists.
The surge in experiences
At the end of 2016, Airbnb launched 500 Experiences. As we work to build Experiences, we value quality, reviewing thousands of applications every week to ensure we only accept those that meet our standards. As a result of applying these standards, Experiences are now available in over 1,000 cities, many of which have never been offered on other platforms. On average, Experience hosts earn $10,000 a year, with the highest earning Experience hosts earning $800,000 a year. Experiences are successful because people want to travel to follow their passions and interests, from food to music to sports, and Airbnb offers this wide range of activities as an alternative to mass tourism.
The success of Experiences has led us to make a significant new investment in the program to increase the number and variety of Experiences available around the world, including opening a second office in Los Angeles to support this expansion. We plan to make further aggressive investments in 2019 to expand our Experiences business and deliver even more diverse and unique experiences around the world.
2019 and beyond
Airbnb is focused on investing in and creating new businesses that will drive long-term growth and remains committed to building an end-to-end travel platform that covers every part of the travel experience. We will continue to provide updates in the coming weeks and months.
