Skift Take
Brian Chesky has said homes are still the heart and soul of Airbnb, but the ambition to go broader dates back to company's early days.
Brian Chesky has spent more than a decade trying to turn Airbnb into something bigger than a short-term rental platform, but there have been several starts and stops — including the pandemic setback — along the way.
He's trying again — with hotels, experiences, car rentals, airport transfers, and a range of services — but history shows how hard it is to change where consumers book travel.
“Why would Airbnb just offer homes? Why couldn’t we offer significantly more things? And that’s the future of this company,” was how Chesky laid out the vision during the 2024 Skift Global Forum. “I anticipate, every year, we launch two to three things that could eventually generate a billion dollars a year annually in revenue.”
Here's the timeline of Airbnb's efforts to branch out beyond short-term rentals throughout the years.
2008: Launch of AirbnbChesky and co-founder Joe Gebbia came up with the idea in 2007, renting a
Photo Credit: An Airbnb advertisement on a street in New York City. Skift
