Airbnb listings soon will appear alongside traditional hotel
properties in accommodation search results on the Concur desktop platform, but
only for travelers from companies that have chosen to work with Airbnb.
A hotel search in Chicago, for instance, will bring up not
only branded properties from hoteliers like Hilton and Marriott International
but also Airbnb listings with detailed property information, such as rating and
the number of reviewers, number of bedrooms, included amenities and a property
description provided by the host. Reviews and full-sized property photos are
viewable via a pop-up screen.
Users will still be transferred to the Airbnb site when it
comes time to book. “However, once you’re done booking, we’ll return you to
Concur and populate your Concur Travel itinerary with your accommodation
choice(s) and include it as an expense you can import into a future expense report,”
said Airbnb product, technology and design spokesperson Tim Rathschmidt.
Concur is building on Airbnb’s application
programming interface to share information so travel managers can keep track of
Airbnb stays directly in the Concur travel platform. Concur and Airbnb first partnered
in July 2014 to bring Airbnb into TripLink. Use of Airbnb has since grown on
the platform, as highlighted by figures
released by Concur in November 2016. Currently, Rathschmidt told BTN, 15 percent of all nights booked on Airbnb are for business travel.
Sample Concur search results