Following a host of recent legal barriers on rentals and municipal measures, Airbnb is looking beyond its accommodation platform and expanding into a full-scale travel agency. Its new initiative is called Airbnb Trips, which will launch in over fifty cities by next year. The new feature offers local tour services that can vary from a few hours, called single experiences, to several days, called immersions. Users are also able to filter activities by category and location, and even schedule a full timeline which lets the app suggest activities based on time gaps, location and preferences.
Airbnb has also teamed up with restaurant reservation app Resy to allow easy bookings. The San Francisco startup also introduced the possibility of hosts offering rides to specific places, providing an alternative to ride-hailing apps such as Uber. This new development is in line with the the startup’s appeal as a way to authentically experience a new city like a local — with Trips, Airbnb lets local hosts share any kind of experience, hobby or passion, not just a room to sleep in.