AirBnB Update No Longer Requires Users to Enter Exact Dates of Stay as Company Focuses on Flexibility

Sophie Webster, Tech Times 25 May 2021, 02:05 am

AirBnB released an update and it caused a major revamp of its website and app.

As people think about traveling again since the restrictions caused by the pandemic is now easing up, the company is thinking of ways to make the experience better for its subscribers.

AirBnB Update on Dates

At the center of the redesign is a focus on flexibility. The company started rolling out a feature that it created back in February, so the next time that you look for a place to stay, you do not have to specify an exact set of dates anymore. Instead, you can tell AirBnB that you want accommodation where you can get away for a weekend, a one-week vacation, or even an entire month, according to Engadget.

To support the company's push for flexibility, the AirBnB app will display homes that fall just outside of your search parameters to highlight some of the platform's best properties.

Also Read: AirBnb Sacks Contractors, Cancels Summer Internships; Is It For Good?

And if all that you want is to find an interesting place to stay for vacation or a getaway, you can use the Flexible Destinations feature to surface listings like boats, treehouses, and even cabins.

Also, AirBnB has tweaked the checkout process of the app and the website in order to make the process faster and easier. It has done some work to make cancellation policies even more straightforward, and the reviews more helpful for future users.

For the hosts, AirBnB has redesigned the onboarding process in order to make it faster to add a property on the site. What used to involve dozes of different steps is now distilled by the company to up to 10.

As the hosts add photos to their listing, the app will automatically arrange them based on the guest appeal. It will also offer text suggestions to help hosts in writing titles and descriptions.

If you live in the United States, AirBnB can automatically pull from publicly available real estate information to fill in some details, such as the number of bedrooms and bathrooms in your space.

AirBnB's new features will appeal most to people who want to get away and are not particular about the destination.

At least in the Untied States, the travel industry is starting to slowly recover after it was hit hard at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and people are taking advantage of easing restrictions.

AirBnB's Increased Sales

According to CNBC, AirBnB said that their revenue increased 5% in the first quarter of 2020, beating the estimate set by analysts, as the rapid pace of vaccinations led to more travel.

The company's net loss tripled because of debt repayments and restructuring costs.

The coronavirus pandemic curtailed the rental activity on AirBnB, but the business appears to be slowly recovering as vaccines become more widely available, and governments lift travel restrictions.

The company reported 64.4 million nights and experiences booked, it was up 39% from the fourth quarter and up 13% year over year.

Analysts polled by FactSet had expected at least 62.5 million nights and experiences booked.