Airbnb wants your
spare room

Airbnb is gearing up for winter travel and cold economic headwinds by launching Rooms, a new take on the origins of the business.

It offers more affordable ways for guests to experience a destination by staying with a local, and a way to search for private room stays with a dedicated Rooms Category.

Last year, nights stayed in a private room listing grew by 40 percent compared to the year prior, pointing to travelers seeking out more affordable travel amid rising cost of living. More than 47,000 cities had at least one private bedroom listing with an average price of under $50 last year.

Private bedroom listings are one of Airbnb’s most popular types of stay for guests, with the Private Room Category (now “Rooms”), the third-most booked category since it launched Airbnb Categories last May.

Airbnb has also announced 50 more features and upgrades aimed at improving every aspect of the Airbnb service and based on feedback from its community. These include:

Redesigned wishlists, featuring a new interface, one-tap saving, and an improved calendar that shows availability of wishlisted homes. Guests can also add notes to any wishlisted listing – making it easier to remember why they liked it. Since launching wishlists a decade ago, over one billion wishlists have been created.

Total price display, with the option to view the total price with fees, before taxes, across the entire app including in search results, price filter, maps, and listing pages. Since December, when the feature was offered to guests as optional, more than 8 million visitors turned the total price toggle on.

Transparent checkout instructions, so guests can now view checkout instructions on the listing page before booking and receive a reminder before they leave the home. During the review process, guests can report any excessive requests. Listings with repeated low ratings from unreasonable chores will be removed from Airbnb.

Improved maps, updated with faster performance, persistent pins when zooming and panning, and more results when searching.

As part of the 50 upgrades, Airbnb will also launch 25 improvements for Hosts, including new pricing tools to help them see the nightly price inclusive of all fees, compare the average prices of similar listings booked nearby, and easily add weekly and monthly discounts.

Top trending local destinations for South Africans searching on AirBnB this winter include:

• Stellenbosch, Western Cape
• Franschhoek, Western Cape
• Jeffreys Bay, Eastern Cape
• Pretoria, Gauteng
• Cape Town, Western Cape
• Marloth Park, Mpumalanga
• Hermanus, Western Cape
• Sandton, Gauteng
• Plettenberg Bay, Western Cape
• Knysna, Western Cape

Meanwhile, the top trending winter international destinations searched by South African guest are:

• Paris, France
• Barcelona, Spain
• Amsterdam, Netherlands
• Athens, Greece
• Lisbon, Portugal
• London, United Kingdom
• Corfu, Greece
• New York, United States
• Thira, Greece
• Dublin, Ireland