Airbnb Launches New Search Feature to Help Travelers Find Any Type of Home — From A-frame Cabins to Castles
Airbnb is releasing a whole new redesign to ensure you can travel exactly how and where you want to.
On Tuesday, the home rental company announced a host of new updates to its platform, including a new feature called Airbnb Categories making it simple to discover one-of-a-kind homes in places you may never have considered before.
"Airbnb Categories are collections of homes organized by what makes them unique," Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky shared in a video introduction at about all the new features on the platform.
According to Chesky, who unveiled new updates at a press event in New York City, Airbnb Categories now includes more than 4 million unique homes spread across the globe.
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"All these homes already exist on Airbnb, but until you go through the effort of categorizing millions and millions of homes, you just don't know what you have," Chesky added.
When users visit Airbnb, they are now presented with 56 categories that organize homes into curated collections based on their unique style, location, or proximity to travel activity.
The new "Design" category includes a collection of more than 20,000 homes chosen for their architecture and interiors. It's a category that Airbnb says matches traveler interest. In a statement, Airbnb revealed that Wishlists containing "design" in their title grew 175% in 2021 compared to 2019.
The new search filter will allow people to think beyond destinations and instead focus on what kind of trip they want to experience. For example, you can now search by "Camping," or "Countryside," and, as Chesky noted, "if you really want to get out of town, there's even the Arctic."
What about searching for Castles? "We have a lot of them," Chesky added.
There's even a new category simply titled "OMG," which Chesky explained, is filled with all the homes around the world that are simply so unique they can't fit in any other box.
"We were trying to think of a name for this category, and 'OMG' summed it up," he shared.
Say you know a country or region you want to go to but aren't exactly sure. The new Categories feature can help you nail down the perfect spot.
Travelers heading somewhere in or near France, can now search the country along with their chosen category. The smart map will not only show homes within the category and region but will also zoom out to show homes within the category slightly outside the borders to help encourage guests to think outside the box for their next vacation home getaway.
"We're hopefully highlighting locations and homes that you otherwise wouldn't have searched for," Chesky added.
In total, the Airbnb founder explained that there are 56 different categories of homes that represent 4.4 million homes on Airbnb. In other words, he adds, "There's literally a category for everyone."
Chesky also revealed Airbnb's top booked destinations for this summer at the event.
