Airbnb Acquires Online Workspace Booking Company

Online rental booking platform Airbnb has recently acquired Gaest.com [gest] in hopes of diversifying its services. Airbnb announced the acquisition in January through a blog post. The terms of the deal were not made public, but Airbnb’s post stated that Gaest.com will still operate as a separate platform for the time being. Gaest.com’s employees, however, will officially become a part of Airbnb’s Homes business unit. Gaest.com is an online marketplace established in Denmark in 2015. This company provides a platform wherein hosts can rent out spaces for business purposes, like meetings and interviews, for a short time. Currently, Gaest.com offers its services in 17 countries and has over 3,000 listings around the world. Because Gaest.com has a different target market, the acquisition can be a good opportunity for Airbnb to branch out and ultimately increase its revenue. With Gaest.com, Airbnb will be able to tap into not only the market of travelers but also the growing market of business guests. In the future, Airbnb plans to incorporate Gaest.com to Airbnb for Work, an existing service that allows business travelers to book accommodations for business-related activities like team-building and off-site events. This service was launched in 2014 as Airbnb’s first step toward expanding to the rental workplace market. At present, around 700,000 companies use Airbnb for Work to cater to the business trip needs of their professionals. But with the recent acquisition, Airbnb hopes to see a further increase in the number of clients using this service.