Airbnb introduces new search tools for business travelers

As more companies turn to Airbnb for Work to arrange work trips, the vacation rentals, homes and experiences business is making things easier for business travelers.

The company already provides thousands of listings catered to business travelers, complete with flexible access, personal kitchens for home-cooked meals and/or on-site laundry. Now, customers can easily locate those listings with Airbnb’s new search capabilities for business trips.

Airbnb’s work trip toggle, available globally as of today, allows guests to customize their search results for work travel and make more informed booking decisions by immediately filtering out vacation homes and other less convenient offerings. Airbnb is relying partly on social recommendations to ensure the correct listings — which includes entire homes, Airbnb Plus homes and boutique hotels — are showcased, including listings that have positive ratings from business travelers specifically.

Airbnb for Work launched in 2014 and has quickly grown to account for a large chunk of the company’s overall bookings. Last year, to account for the popularity of the service, Airbnb expanded its work arm to include Airbnb Experiences tailored for teams and more. Today, 500,000 companies are using Airbnb for Work to help manage their business travel.

Airbnb’s latest product tweak shows how personalized the platform can become — and is becoming — as it accumulates data from its massive trove of customers. The company, which counts 6 million listings in more than 100,000 cities, is doubling down on customization, M&A and more as it prepares for an initial public offering expected soon.