As hosts, property managers, and STR advocates, it’s easy to focus on the daily realities of running our businesses — occupancy, regulations, pricing, guest communications. But every now and then, it’s worth zooming out to understand the direction of the platform itself. In September at Skift’s Global Forum in New York City, Airbnb’s co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky gave one of the clearest, most candid overviews to date of where Airbnb is headed.
For those unfamiliar, Skift’s Global Forum is sometimes called the “Davos of the travel industry” — it’s where major CEOs lay out their long-term visions for investors, operators, and competitors alike. Chesky used his session to signal something significant: Airbnb isn’t just adding new features. It’s rebuilding itself from the ground up, preparing to become a multi-line global travel platform rather than a single-product company.
A Growth Engine That Needs Tuning
Chesky didn’t sugarcoat the numbers. Airbnb expects growth of 8–10% for the third quarter, well below where he thinks it should be. “I’m not happy about where the growth rate is in the company,” he said. “I think the company should be growing significantly faster. It should at least be growing in the teens.”
His goal is to return Airbnb to double-digit growth, ideally exceeding 20% annually in the coming years. To do that, Airbnb has to move past its origins as a one-dimensional home-rental platform. Chesky envisions a company with 10 to 15 interconnected business lines, each one built on a shared technological backbone but serving different travel needs. To support that vision, Airbnb has spent the last five years quietly rebuilding its core architecture.
A “Technical Gut Renovation”
Chesky likened this process to a “technical gut renovation” — not a cosmetic remodel, but a full re-wiring of Airbnb’s internal systems. The pandemic, he noted, “basically cut the company almost in half.” Airbnb laid off thousands, retrenched, went public, and then spent years re-engineering its platform to support what comes next.
This wasn’t just about upgrading servers. Airbnb rewrote almost every tab of the app to make its system modular and extensible. In the original version of Airbnb, the entire platform was optimized for one thing: renting homes. Adding a second or third business line would have required parallel development, duplicated systems, and significant friction.
By contrast, the new architecture is designed to accommodate multiple business verticals, each plugging into a shared foundation. Chesky explicitly cited Amazon’s playbook: the company moved beyond selling books by building an infrastructure flexible enough to support electronics, clothing, and eventually cloud computing. Airbnb, he argued, must make a similar leap if it’s going to sustain growth over the long term.
For hosts, this matters because it lays the groundwork for fundamental changes to how guests find, book, and experience travel — not in a year or two, but over the next decade.
Relaunching Experiences and Adding Services
One of the first major initiatives riding on this new backbone is the relaunch of Airbnb Experiences. Originally launched in 2016, Experiences let travelers book local activities — cooking classes, guided tours, workshops — alongside accommodations. While popular in some urban markets, the product never scaled as hoped. Hosts had limited tools to integrate experiences into their listings, and travelers often saw them as an “add-on” rather than part of their trip planning. Then the pandemic shut it down entirely.
Chesky says this time will be different. Airbnb has rebuilt its technology, reorganized internally, and is making a much bigger investment. The relaunch goes further than its original concept: travelers will soon be able to book services like personal trainers, massages, or private chefs through Airbnb, along with traditional experiences. These offerings will be woven more tightly into the booking flow, not hidden on the margins.
For hosts, this could create new revenue opportunities and partnerships. Imagine being able to offer a bundled farm tour with a rural stay, or connecting guests with trusted local service providers in your area, all through Airbnb’s platform. While this is still early, it signals a future in which Airbnb is more than just a place to book a bed — it’s a hub for the entire travel journey.
Building for Global Scale
Chesky also made clear that geographic expansion is central to Airbnb’s growth ambitions. Today, roughly 70% of Airbnb’s business is concentrated in just five countries — the U.S., Canada, the U.K., France, and Australia. That leaves more than 200 other countries and territories with relatively limited Airbnb penetration.
“What about the other 215 countries?” he asked. His argument is simple: if Airbnb can achieve even half the U.S. market penetration in these regions, the resulting growth would be massive.
Consider the potential: many parts of Asia, Africa, and South America are seeing rapid tourism development, rising disposable incomes, and increased digital adoption. Airbnb’s rebuilt platform is designed to make scaling in these markets more seamless — both in terms of listings and new product categories like Experiences and services. For hosts in established markets, this global growth could mean shifting guest flows, more diverse traveler demographics, and new competition in previously untapped destinations.
From One Business to Many
Chesky’s remarks paint a picture of a company deliberately evolving from a single line of business to a diversified travel platform. Airbnb was born as a home-sharing disruptor. Now, its leadership wants to turn it into a multi-faceted hospitality ecosystem, built on a modern technical foundation and capable of supporting multiple revenue streams at once.
For hosts and operators, these changes are more than abstract strategy. They will shape how Airbnb presents options to travelers, what kinds of services are offered, and potentially how hosts can participate in the platform’s broader ecosystem.
This first stage of Airbnb’s transformation focuses on fixing the fundamentals, relaunching Experiences, and setting the stage for global expansion. In part two, we’ll look at the next set of moves Chesky outlined at Skift — including boutique hotels and AI — and how they could reshape the landscape for short-term rentals.
Barb Culligan
With a background in hospitality and real estate, Barb Culligan began hosting in 2018 and soon became an advocate for fair STR regulations after challenging the City of Nashville over permitting issues. She has since mentored more than 3,400 new hosts as an Airbnb “Ask a Superhost” Ambassador and serves as Airbnb’s Community Leader in Nashville. Barb manages and co-hosts rentals across Tennessee and Arkansas, and with her husband, Pat, runs a hotel brokerage, development, and consulting firm. She also hosts the podcast Women of Airbnb. She can be reached at Barbara.culligan@gmail.com