AirBnB to partner with AirPlus for integrated business bookings

Peer to peer house-share service, AirBnB, is set to partner up with business booking service, AirPlus, to make it easier than ever for businessmen and women to find somewhere to stay in cities around the world. Together they will create an integrated booking and payment system, which speeds up the process and makes it much more efficient.

The idea behind the joint system is that AirBnB business customers will be able to book accommodation on the site and then bill the corporate account directly, without needing to file expenses or similar. Travel managers should also be able to organise more complicated trips, with multiple employees, assigning them specific accommodation broken down by cost or project.

“More and more business travellers wish to make use of the flexibility that the sharing economy offers. At the same time, travel managers wish to track compliance and costs,” said Patrick W. Diemer, Managing Director of AirPlus. “Together with Airbnb, we are pleased to combine flexible booking, automated payment and billing as well as transparent cost management into a single solution.”

There will be plenty of customers willing to take both firms up on their new offer too, as AirBnB for Business is said to have tripled in growth through 2016. However, there is a growing resistance to AirBnB tactics. Its circumvention of hotel laws has some politicians calling for regulation, while analysts claim it is raising rental and purchase prices for homes in city centres as investors buy them up in order to rent them out using the service, rather than renting to families or working individuals.

In some parts of the world, that's said to be having a powerful impact on city life.

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KitGuru Says: Are any of the big travellers among you fans of AirBnB? Have any of you found trying to rent or buy in cities is becoming harder because of its growth?

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