Airbnb and Concur have been TripLink buddies since 2014. Plus, the homesharing site has fed expense data directly to Concur since the same year. Since last summer, however, the two companies have been working on a deeper partnership: integrating Airbnb listings into the Concur booking platform.
How & Where Airbnb for Work is Growing
As more corporates loosen their travel policies to allow or even embrace Airbnb as a lodging option, the Airbnb for Work platform is seeing steady growth. According to Airbnb for Work global head David Holyoke, almost 700,000 companies have employees booking stays on Airbnb. Almost 275,000 companies are actively engaged, which is to say, according to Holyoke, they have "a travel manager, a finance officer, chairman, a conference manager within a company that actually has access to the dashboard and is managing the programs within their overall travel programs." From 2015 and 2016, Airbnb for Work bookings tripled, and bookings tripled again from 2016 and 2017.
Airbnb for Work typically has been used for longer-term stays, averaging six nights. Within the past year, however, that average has dropped to five nights. The fastest growing stay segment is three nights or less. At the same time, stays for 14 days or longer also have tripled within the past year.
The company also sees more employees traveling together. Sixty percent of work stays have at least two employees traveling together, and 40 percent of that share has three or more. "Obviously," Holyoke said, that is "showing the value of employees taking large homes together with great common use space for collaboration and productive meetings, then having their own private space and getting the most out of a productive trip while saving the company money."
Airbnb for Work is testing unique landing pages that provide company-specific domains for employees; each page features content filtered according to the corporate's specifications and policy. "That company can set pricing parameters. They can enable things like showing homes near office locations," Holyoke said. "They have the ability to add other pertinent information and use cases that would allow them to complement their current program."
—Julie SickelAnnounced in July 2017, the partnership will bear fruit this month. Airbnb listings will appear alongside traditional lodging content. Properties flowing into Concur will meet Airbnb for Work criteria, which means they must be an entire home or a private room with ensuite or private bath. They also must include amenities like Wi-Fi, a workspace and, as of last month, a smoke detector. Hosts must maintain an Airbnb rating of 4.8 or higher over the previous 12 months. They also must have responded within 24 hours to 90 percent of booking requests and must offer a moderate or flexible cancellation policy.
"Companies have a number of use cases for Airbnb bookings: tight inventory during major conventions and events, low-cost alternatives in higher-priced markets, more convenient locations or nonstandard stays where a small group might want to stay together. There are lots of long-tail examples, including business trips with a leisure component," said SAP Concur chief product officer and EVP Tim MacDonald. "We've seen significant growth in Airbnb bookings via our TripLink connection and in the data coming through expense reports. It was clearly an integration that was right for our customers."
Sixty-three percent of SAP Concur's Fortune 500 customers expensed Airbnb stays in 2017, according to the company. Overall, SAP Concur clients using the homesharing platform increased 42 percent from 2016 to 2017. The U.S. saw the highest percentage of Airbnb bookings, according to Concur expense data. Growth has spread globally with an 85 percent increase in Airbnb bookings in Asia/Pacific and a 65 percent increase in Europe and the Middle East.
SAP Concur expense data supports MacDonald's use case examples; there were quarterly spikes around events in certain cities like Austin's South by Southwest, and 56 percent of Airbnb business travel bookings included a weekend stay in 2017.
SAP Concur clients can choose to expose Airbnb content in the tools or not, MacDonald said. They don't have to be formal Airbnb for Work clients to take advantage. "All clients can have access to the content if they want it."
The Concur booking tool displays ratings, reviews and other critical information so travelers can make informed decisions. The process, however, takes travelers out of the Concur tool and into Airbnb to complete the booking. The data automatically ports back into Concur to merge with other itinerary details and for travel reporting.