It Just Got Easier for Business Travelers to Book Rooms on Airbnb The room-rental company launched new features aimed at making it more seamless for employees to book rooms, submit bills and keep track of expenses.
By Laura Entis
Opinions expressed by BIZ Experiences contributors are their own.
Airbnb wants to help you book a room on your next business trip.
Today, the peer-to-peer room rental company launched a new suite of tools aimed at making it easier for employees and companies alike to manage and track travel itineraries booked through the site.
Those traveling for work can now open an account that includes a central billing system, allowing them to directly expense all Airbnb costs. Meanwhile, businesses can create a dashboard that catalogs current and upcoming employee trips, exports financial data and reports, and manages approved and pending employees who have been permitted to book business travel using Airbnb.
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The company first announced its business travel program a year ago. Since then, it says the number of companies that use Airbnb has grown to 250 while the program itself has grown by 700 percent.
"Our employees worldwide appreciate the choice and flexibility that Airbnb listings provide them when they're on the road — whether for conferences, meetings, or team offsites," Darragh Ormsby, a global travel manager at Google, said in a statement. "It's great that Googlers can easily access Airbnb's wide range of accommodations as they make their travel plans."
Airbnb is a small but rapidly growing business expense for companies. According to a recent report by travel and expense management software provider Certify, corporate travel receipts for Airbnb jumped 143 percent from Q1 of 2015 to Q2. Airbnb is currently the fifth most popular online travel-booking site, according to the report.
