Bulletins

Airbnb is retooling search for the nomadic future of work

The company's "biggest change" in a decade is all about booking hidden gems for longer stays.

Airbnb is retooling search for the nomadic future of work
Airbnb Summer Release - Desktop and Mobile
Image: Airbnb

Airbnb has committed to letting its employees work from anywhere. Now the company is applying that ethos to its actual product, rolling out a massive redesign that encourages users to find hidden gems rather than search by cities. Airbnb cofounders Nate Blecharczyk and Brian Chesky said the changes, the company's biggest in a decade, will make it easier for guests, especially those working from home, to find and book stays for longer periods of time.


Airbnb will now look completely different. Users will be able to filter homes by 56 categories, including style, location or proximity to activities like skiing, camping and golfing. Filters will include boats, cabins, "amazing pools," lakes, tropical locales and vineyards, among others.

"We're reinventing travel in a way that is less transactional and more experiential," Blecharczyk, Airbnb's chief strategy officer, told Protocol.

Blecharczyk said guests began looking for longer stays and more and more unconventional homes like boats and barns as they shifted away from office work. Blecharczyk said the redesign is a reflection of that shift: People care more about the vibe of a place when they plan to work there for an extended period of time.

"Many employers are saying that they're going to adopt the very least a hybrid type of policy, which means that employees will continue to have the flexibility to work from home or work from any home for that matter," he said.

Airbnb Split Stays - CDMX and Copenhagen Image: Airbnb

Nights booked for unique homes like tiny houses, barns, domes and treehouses grew 80% in Q1 compared to 2019, the company said. Fewer people are looking for trips in popular cities, too: Stays booked in Airbnb’s top cities represented 8% of its revenue in the first quarter, down from 12% in the first quarter of 2019.

By changing Airbnb’s search, finding hidden gems is the default experience; not something users need to comb through listings to find.

"[People] are going to continue to have the flexibility not just to work from home, or from any home," he said. "If people knew they could have this great one week stay out in the countryside, and they saw the right option, they would go for it. It wouldn't matter whether they're arriving on a Friday or Tuesday. It would start with, ‘What is the experience?’”

Airbnb also has a new feature called Split Stays, which will let users divvy up their trips between multiple locations. For example, a user looking for campgrounds could use Split Stays to find places at campgrounds near one another.

“One of the challenges when you want a home for a longer stay, let's say, a one-month stay, is that that home actually has to be available that entire period,” Blecharczyk said. “Of course, these homes are popular, maybe someone else is staying there. The longer you want to stay, the fewer options you're going to see when you search.”

Airbnb AirCover - Rebooking and Welcome Message Image: Airbnb

He said Split Stays will give people who are looking to travel for longer periods of time more options. Airbnb expects people to see 40% more listings using the feature than without it.

Airbnb is also launching AirCover, a program for guests that provides booking protection if a host cancels a stay and a 24/7 safety line staffed by “specially trained agents.” AirCover for hosts already provides damage protection and liability insurance and is separate from the new version for guests.

The company's safety line has always been available, but Blecharczyk said it's expanding to cover 16 different languages as Airbnb expects an uptick in international travel this summer.

"There's a lot of pent-up demand for cross border travel," Blecharczyk said. "As people take bigger trips that involve more distance, more money, we want them to have peace of mind."

Latest Bulletins

Mobile game revenue will decline for the first time in history this year, market research firm Newzoo now says in a revised outlook for the 2022 global games market. While the whole game industry is expected to contract by 4.3% — another first since Newzoo began tracking the market in 2007 — the company is predicting a 6.4% decline in mobile game spending on top of a 4.2% decline in console game spending.

Keep ReadingShow less

Amazon is planning to lay off thousands of employees, Protocol has learned, ahead of what the company has cautioned will be a slow holiday shopping season.

Keep ReadingShow less

Google agreed to pay $391.5 million and make changes to its user privacy controls as part of a settlement with a coalition of 40 state attorneys general. The coalition accused Google of misleading customers about location-tracking practices that informed ad targeting.

Keep ReadingShow less

FTX has filed for bankruptcy and the crypto company also announced that founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce recently updated its internal policies to make it easier for managers to terminate employees for performance issues without HR involvement, Protocol has learned, a move that comes as the software giant looks to shed as many as 2,500 jobs.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said fraud and scam reports comprise the top complaint it receives about virtual currencies — and that customers are finding little help from companies when it happens.

Keep ReadingShow less

Elon Musk sent his first email to Twitter staff late Wednesday, warning of a difficult economic road ahead and telling employees they need to be in office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. "Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," he began, ominously.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance isn’t buying FTX after all. The crypto giant said Wednesday it has decided that it “will not pursue the potential acquisition” based on a “corporate due diligence” review.

Keep ReadingShow less

On Wednesday, John Kerry unveiled a plan for a new carbon credit program aimed at mobilizing private capital to help middle-income countries transition away from coal and move toward renewable energy.

Keep ReadingShow less

Meta announced it was laying off more than 11,000 employees Wednesday morning, slashing jobs in its recruiting department and refocusing its remaining team on AI discovery, ads, and its investment in the metaverse.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a message to employees that was also posted online. "I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted."

Keep ReadingShow less

Al Gore has one mission this week at COP27, and that’s to give climate negotiators what he hopes will be a critical tool to address the crisis at hand: an independent, global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, down to the individual facility.

The Climate TRACE coalition just released the world’s most detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which Gore, a founding member, is unveiling on Wednesday at the United Nations climate summit in Egypt.

Keep ReadingShow less

Way back in March, your friendly Protocol Climate team offered you some tips for writing a climate plan that doesn’t suck. Surely you took that advice. But if for some reason you didn’t, the United Nations has your back.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said Tuesday the crypto powerhouse signed a deal to acquire rival FTX.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce is preparing for a major round of layoffs that could affect as many as 2,500 workers across the software vendor, Protocol has learned, in a bid to cut costs amid a new activist investor challenge and harsh economic conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less

BlockFi has introduced a new digital assets interest product for accredited investors, after previously agreeing to shut down a yield-paying crypto product that the SEC said was illegal.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Justice Department said Monday it seized $3.4 billion worth of bitcoin stolen in the 2012 hack of the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Keep ReadingShow less

U.S. election infrastructure is exceedingly secure, and voter fraud here is sorare it’s comparable to your annual chances of getting struck by lightning. Despite this, former President Donald Trump and a long list of allies in the Republican Party have spent the last two years questioning the overall integrity of the U.S. election system. Many of those allies are now candidates themselves, and their coordinated attack on the country’s status as a democracy is not a relic of 2020. Some have already startedrepeating these “Big Lie” charges ahead of next week’s midterms. And the social platforms that help them spread their message haveprepared few measures to stop it.

Keep ReadingShow less

The White House just laid out its climate tech priorities to reach net zero by 2050.

Keep ReadingShow less

Coinbase said Thursday that it lost more users in the third quarter. But the decline wasn’t the disastrous drop that Wall Street was expecting, and that sparked a rally in the crypto company’s shares after-hours.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Biden administration announced $9 billion in funding Wednesday to improve home efficiency, which could help support the installation of up to 500,000 heat pumps. With winter approaching and utilities warning of gas shortages, there are some major challenges facing the technology that money can be used to tackle.

Keep ReadingShow less

Block beat earnings expectations, with strong growth largely fueled by its Cash App business. Traders sent shares up more than 12% after-hours Thursday.

Keep ReadingShow less

Stripe is laying off 14% of its staff, its co-founders said Thursday, as the fintech startup must start "building differently for leaner times."

Keep ReadingShow less

Roku saw its revenue growth slow in Q3, and warned investors Wednesday that things are about to get worse: “A lot of Q4 ad campaigns are being canceled,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s Q4 earnings call. “We’re seeing lots of big categories pull back. Telecom, insurance … even toy marketers are planning on reducing their spending.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges abound, but skilled sustainability professionals are scarce.

Keep ReadingShow less

Robinhood reported a drop in third-quarter revenue but also a narrower loss on Wednesday, in a sign that it might be stabilizing its business as it attempts to recover from a staggering drop in the stock and crypto trading activity that fueled its growth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bulletins