Airbnb expands business beyond accommodation and moves more directly into the territory of Booking.com and Expedia
Airbnb no longer wants to be just a platform for booking apartments, houses and rooms. On May 20, 2026, the company presented a new group of services covering car rental, grocery delivery, airport transfers, luggage storage, hotel accommodation in boutique and independent hotels, and additional tools for trip planning. According to Airbnb's official announcement, the goal is to bring together as much of the trip as possible within a single app, from arrival at the destination to activities during the stay and user support. This positions Airbnb increasingly clearly as a broader travel platform, and not only as a short-term rental marketplace.
Such a shift puts the company in more direct competition with the largest global online travel intermediaries, above all Booking Holdings and Expedia Group. Booking.com has for years been developing the concept of the so-called connected trip, in which the user can book accommodation, a flight, car rental, attractions and other elements of a trip within the same ecosystem. Expedia, with the brands Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo, also presents itself as a global travel marketplace that connects travelers, partners and advertisers. Airbnb is now trying to narrow the gap between its traditional model, built on private accommodation, and the broader model of online travel agencies.
New services target the entire trip, not only the overnight stay
According to Airbnb's 2026 summer release, users in selected cities in the United States can order grocery delivery through Instacart, including the option for groceries to be waiting for them at the accommodation upon arrival. The company says the service is available in more than 25 U.S. cities, with promotional benefits for qualified orders. The same package also announced the expansion of private transfers through Welcome Pickups, with Airbnb citing availability in more than 160 cities around the world. The service is designed as pre-booked transportation to or from accommodation, with a driver who tracks the flight and welcomes the traveler upon arrival.
Airbnb is also introducing luggage storage through a partnership with Bounce. According to the official announcement, users can see nearby luggage drop-off locations in the app, the distance from their booked accommodation, and access to a network of more than 15,000 locations in 175 cities. Car rental is expected to appear directly in the app during the summer of 2026, and Airbnb says that nearly a quarter of its guests rent a car during their stay. Instead of leaving the user to other services after booking accommodation, the company wants to offer additional options where it already has data about the location, length of stay and composition of the travel group.
This strategy does not mean that Airbnb is abandoning its original product. On the contrary, short-term rental remains the center of the business, but the company is trying to increase the value of each reservation and the frequency of app use. If a user can order food, book transportation, find an activity and receive customer support in the same app, Airbnb gains more touchpoints with the traveler and more opportunities for additional revenue.
Entry into hotels changes the brand's previous image
One of the most important new features is the inclusion of thousands of boutique and independent hotels. Airbnb says hotels will be searchable in 20 leading global destinations, including New York, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome and Singapore, with a plan to expand to additional cities during the year. The company emphasizes that it is not introducing large hotel chains, but properties selected because of their neighborhood location, design and approach to hospitality. That detail is important because Airbnb is trying to fit the hotel offer into its own identity, and not simply take over a standard catalog of hotel rooms.
Airbnb long built its recognizability on the idea that travelers can stay in homes, neighborhoods and spaces that differ from classic hotels. But regulatory restrictions on short-term rentals in some large cities, a lack of supply in periods of high demand, and the habits of users who in some situations still want hotel service are creating pressure for expansion. According to Airbnb's financial results for the first quarter of 2026, the company had already tested boutique and independent hotels in multiple markets and said that early results were encouraging, especially in cities where accommodation supply is constrained by demand or regulation.
In the same report, Airbnb states that about 55 percent of guests who booked a hotel through Airbnb in 2024 returned and later booked a home within the following 365 days. This data shows that the company views hotels not only as a new revenue category, but also as an entry point for users who may not have used Airbnb before. Unlike Booking.com and Expedia, for which hotels have long been the foundation of the offer, Airbnb must convince both hotels and users that its platform can be a relevant channel for this type of accommodation.
Experiences and events become an important part of the offer
Back in 2025, Airbnb relaunched Airbnb Experiences more strongly and introduced Airbnb Services, thereby expanding the app to activities and professional services. According to the official announcement at the time, the services began with 10 categories in 260 cities, including private chefs, massages, photography, spa treatments, personal training, hairdressing and beauty services, prepared meals and catering. The company emphasized that service providers undergo quality checks, including experience, identity and the necessary licenses or certificates where they are required.
In the latest summer 2026 release, Airbnb says it is adding thousands of new experiences led by local experts, with an emphasis on landmarks, food culture and events. The company claims that experiences have an average rating of 4.93 out of 5 according to internal data for the period from May 13, 2025, to March 31, 2026. It also lists more than 3,000 experiences connected to landmarks, from the Tower of London to Tokyo Skytree and the Taj Mahal, and more than 2,500 experiences related to gastronomy. A special place is occupied by programs connected with the 2026 FIFA World Cup, including activities in six host cities.
Major events are becoming a separate engine of growth. In its financial report for the first quarter of 2026, Airbnb said it expects the 2026 World Cup to be the largest event in the platform's history by number of guests. According to the company, since host recruitment activity began in October 2025, more than 100,000 homes in 16 World Cup host cities have been listed on Airbnb for the first time. In a separate announcement about the tournament, Airbnb stated that more guests had already been booked than for any previous event on the platform, showing how much the company is counting on large sports and cultural events as an opportunity to grow supply and attract new users.
Artificial intelligence enters planning and customer support
In the new version of the app, Airbnb also emphasizes tools based on artificial intelligence. According to the official announcement, the platform is introducing review summaries that highlight topics important to users, such as location, amenities or suitability for families. A view for comparing saved stays has also been announced, using AI-generated summaries with additional context about the location and advantages of each property. Some of these features will be introduced gradually during the year, which means their real usefulness still has to be confirmed in broader use.
The company is also expanding customer support through an AI assistant. According to Airbnb's data from the first quarter of 2026, more than 40 percent of user issues among those who contact support through the AI assistant were resolved without a human agent, compared with roughly one third in the fourth quarter of 2025. Airbnb also says that the cost per reservation in the first quarter fell by about 10 percent year over year, which it links to further improvement of automated support. In the announcement of the summer release, the company added that the AI assistant is available in 11 languages and that it will later expand to voice support as well.
Financial results create room for more aggressive expansion
Airbnb is entering this phase of expansion after a strong start to 2026. According to financial results for the first quarter, revenue increased 18 percent year over year to 2.7 billion dollars, while gross booking value increased 19 percent. The company says guests spent nearly 30 billion dollars on Airbnb in that quarter, and the number of nights and seats booked rose 9 percent. Net income amounted to 160 million dollars, while adjusted EBITDA reached 519 million dollars.
These results give Airbnb financial room to invest in new categories, but they also increase investor expectations. In its report for the first quarter, the company said that for the whole of 2026 it expects revenue growth to accelerate to low- to mid-teens rates and an adjusted EBITDA margin of at least 35 percent. At the same time, it warned of macroeconomic and geopolitical uncertainty, including increased cancellations in the EMEA and Asia-Pacific regions due to conflict in the Middle East.
The mobile app is especially important in Airbnb's business model. The company states that nights booked through the app in the first quarter of 2026 rose 22 percent year over year and accounted for 63 percent of total nights booked, compared with 58 percent a year earlier. That is precisely why expanding the app's functions is strategically important: the more travel decisions take place within Airbnb's interface, the better position the company has to sell additional services, personalize recommendations and retain users.
Booking and Expedia already offer a broader travel ecosystem
Airbnb's expansion should be viewed in the context of a market in which competitors are already deeply rooted. Booking Holdings, owner of Booking.com, Priceline, Agoda, Kayak and OpenTable, describes in its reports the goal of connecting planning, booking, payment and the experience during travel. According to Booking Holdings' annual report, the company wants to enable users to create a complete itinerary that can include a flight, car rental, accommodation and attractions. This approach is not only the addition of products, but an attempt to keep the user in the same ecosystem through multiple stages of travel.
Expedia Group has a different, but similarly broad, reach. According to the announcement of results for the fourth quarter and the full year 2025, Expedia achieved 119.59 billion dollars in gross bookings in 2025, an increase of 8 percent, and 14.73 billion dollars in revenue, also with growth of 8 percent. The company says its ecosystem includes the consumer brands Expedia, Hotels.com and Vrbo, a B2B travel business and an advertising network. It is precisely this combination of hotel accommodation, vacation homes, flights, advertising and business partnerships that forms the framework against which Airbnb now wants to compare itself.
Airbnb is in a special position in this competition. It has a strong brand in the private accommodation segment, a large community of hosts and a user experience that differs from classic hotel portals. But Booking and Expedia have long-standing relationships with hotels, airline and rent-a-car partners, developed distribution systems and the habit among users of comparing different types of travel products on their platforms. Airbnb is therefore not entering an empty market, but a space in which it will have to prove that it can offer a sufficiently broad selection and reliability beyond its original segment.
Regulation of short-term rentals remains an important factor
Expansion into hotels and additional services comes at a time when short-term rental in many cities remains under close regulatory scrutiny. In recent years, major tourist centers have introduced stricter rules for renting apartments, explaining them by pressure on housing availability, noise, traffic in residential neighborhoods and the impact of mass tourism. Airbnb, on the other hand, often emphasizes the economic benefit for hosts and local communities and claims that its offer can help cities during major events, when hotel capacity is not sufficient.
Adding boutique hotels may be a partial answer to that problem. In cities where short-term rental is restricted, hotel supply allows Airbnb to retain users who are looking for accommodation but cannot or do not want to book a private apartment. In its financial report for the first quarter of 2026, the company itself says that early results of the hotel pilot are especially encouraging in cities with limited supply because of high demand or regulation. This does not mean that hotels will replace homes on the platform, but it shows that Airbnb is looking for a more resilient model in which it does not depend on only one accommodation category.
What the change means for travelers and the tourism market
For users, Airbnb's expansion may mean simpler trip planning, especially if the additional services prove reliable and price-competitive. The advantage of one app is convenience: accommodation, transfer, luggage, experiences, recommendations and support are in the same place. But such a model also has limitations. Users will continue to compare prices with other platforms, and service quality will depend on local partners, availability and the way problems are resolved when something goes wrong.
For the tourism industry, Airbnb's move confirms a trend in which large platforms are trying to capture a larger share of the total value of a trip. Accommodation is no longer the only goal; transportation, activities, food, local services, loyalty, user data and personalized recommendations are also important. Booking, Expedia and Airbnb are increasingly competing over the same question: who will be the first app a traveler opens before, during and after a trip. Airbnb's answer is expansion beyond homes, but success will depend on whether it can make the new services as recognizable and reliable as its core accommodation offer.
Sources:
- Airbnb Newsroom – official 2026 Summer Release announcement about car rental, grocery delivery, transfers, luggage storage, hotels, experiences and AI tools (link)
- Airbnb Newsroom – financial results for the first quarter of 2026 and data on growth, hotels, experiences, AI support and the 2026 World Cup (link)
- Airbnb Newsroom – official 2025 Summer Release announcement about launching Airbnb Services, Airbnb Experiences and the redesigned app (link)
- Airbnb Newsroom – announcement about the 2026 FIFA World Cup as the platform's biggest-ever event (link)
- Booking Holdings Investor Relations – annual reports and description of the connected trip strategy (link)
- Expedia Group Investor Relations – results for the fourth quarter and full year 2025 and description of Expedia Group's business ecosystem (link)