Airbnb expanding Business Travel

   Traveling for business or pleasure? Airbnb, a rental startup, wants to be the go-to for the second.

On Monday, the company introduced initiatives business, expanding beyond the Airbnb vacation and crowd-surfing couch that has traditionally focused on.

Since 2008, Airbnb has organized a service that allows owners to rent rooms and apartments for short periods of time, effectively becoming a short-term shelter for tourists.

The new effort adds to the company website, designed for business travelers. Airbnb began pushing for business by forming alliances with other technology companies, such as file management companies Evernote, ride-sharing business Lyft and Salesforce cloud computing start-up, which has been integrated into the system Airbnb choice corporate travel reservations.

In addition, Airbnb plans to offer services to other companies too.

"Nearly 10 percent of customers who travel for business and Airbnb, and we have heard from customers that offering high class in your wish list," Chip Conley, director of the global hospitality Airbnb said in a statement.

Airbnb, which operates in nearly 200 countries, has also been working with the agreement, the costs of account management and corporate travel reservations. Through the alliance, travelers can book accommodation through smartphone apps or website Airbnb agreement. The booking fee will automatically appear in the expense account management software of this agreement.

Airbnb field is intended for people on business staying in a tire chain. Often, we have found an agreement, the employee has ventured out of its system of internal tourism to book a trip using Airbnb services, including corporate transactions travelers who have worked with the hotel chain.

This initiative is an effort to share the rental company, the right to take on the giants of the hospitality industry as Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide and Wyndham Hotel Group.

Enter this sector could attract greater scrutiny from regulators and government officials, who have grown increasingly interested in whether customers Airbnb rental fee that violate the law. In May, the Office of the Attorney General of the State of New York won a case in which Airbnb asked to submit data on the number of anonymous users.

In April Airbnb closes $ 450 million round of venture financing, start value at $ 10 billion. The company has raised nearly $ 750 million to date.

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