The night of August 10, 2019, was a special one for Airbnb. On this night, according to the platform’s insights, more than 4 million people across the world spent the night in an Airbnb listing. This marked a record in Airbnb’s 10-year history and is reflective of a larger global trend of changing hospitality trends. Airbnb as a home-sharing platform has been particularly popular in India, both from the guest as well as the host perspective.

To put this into perspective, Indian hosts have welcomed travellers from 196 countries, while guests from India have used Airbnb in 209 countries across the planet.

In the wake of this interesting record, we also discovered the Airbnb Connection Index, a new concept that reflects the pairings of countries and regions between hosts and guests. For example, when a guest from, say, Costa Rica becomes the first to stay with a host in India, a new connection is made between India and Costa Rica. And in turn, when an Indian guest becomes the first to stay with a host in, say, Botswana, another new connection is made between India and Botswana. Today, according to Airbnb’s permutations, there are approximately 26,00 connections made via this platform, with a projected number of 50,000 connections by the year 2027.

This concept of connections is step towards travel that is inclusive, experiential, sustainable and responsible, besides being culturally immersive.

While more business travellers choose to ditch the traditional hotel format for a more relatable Airbnb experience, here are some interesting insights from the platform.

  • Every day, an average of eight new connections are made between different countries and regions.
  • Approximately six guests check into an Airbnb listing every second
  • In the past year, 300 cities have welcomed over 1,00,000 guest arrivals.

airbnb.com