, and is part of a strategy to win over travelers who have shied away from the risks and quirks of renting a stranger’s home.
Airbnb Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky called the acquisition “a big part of building an end-to-end travel platform.” Airbnb has steadily moved into new businesses outside of homes, whose growth is threatened by regulations that cap short-term rentals. In 2018, Airbnb more than doubled the number of available rooms in hotels, resorts, hostels and similar venues. As a result, the company had three times the number of hotel room bookings in 2018 compared to 2017, often by first-time Airbnb users, the company said. And more people are booking Airbnb rooms or homes at the last-minute, many of them business travelers, the company said.
Although the company has struggled to stand out from the travel-booking giants, HotelTonight is profitable. It spent much of 2016 cutting losses through layoffs and eliminating costly promotions to go from burning $2 million to $3 million each month to earning a profit, CEO and Co-founder Sam Shank told Reuters. But it faced immense pressure from investors to grow in a crowded industry.