Home-sharing helps grow and diversify tourism, spreading benefits to communities and local businesses outside of tourist hotspots.
BANGKOK – Airbnbhas hit a milestone in Asia-Pacific with 500,000 listings offered to travellers from all over the world. As Asia-Pacific becomes increasingly important in the global travel landscape, this statistic is also a testament to the exponential rate at which home-sharing has grown over the past few years.
“At Airbnb, we have created a platform to help people belong. Our host community plays a huge part in exciting and inspiring travellers to have a local and authentic experience”, says Parin Mehta, Regional Director of Host and Community, Asia-Pacific. “We see this as a global phenomenon, where people from different countries want to get to know each other, making the world a smaller place.”
Airbnb has been a global platform since 2008 with Asia-Pacific the fastest growing region. An increased trend towards home sharing was a vital contributor to this explosive growth, where the number of listings in the region grew 5x since 2012. Airbnb has welcomed more than 150 million total guests since inception, with Japan and Australia occupying top slots in the global top 10 destinations ranking around the world. Particularly impressive is the data which shows that one in three of all Airbnb guests visiting Asia travel to Japan.
Home-sharing helps grow and diversify tourism, spreading benefits to communities and local businesses outside of tourist hotspots. It also gives local hosts a chance to share the love for their city, along with recommendations and deepen the understanding of different cultures and way of life.
Angelos is the news editor for TravelDailyNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). His role includes to monitor the hundrends of news sources of TravelDailyNews Media Network and skim the most important according to our strategy. He currently studies Communication, Media & Culture in Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens.
