Gant Travel has formed a
partnership with Airbnb for Work to make Airbnb content available to all its
Concur Travel customers.
Concur began integrating
Airbnb for Work listings into its booking platform alongside traditional
lodging options back in
August. That integration still requires customers to opt-in in order
to access Airbnb for Work content.
Gant, though, is using an
opt-out model in which all of its customers will automatically have access to
Airbnb for Work listings. Gant president Patrick Linnihan said going opt-out
rather than opt-in as Gant has done with other technology integrations allows
for "so much more speed and momentum."
Prior to forming the
partnership, Gant tested the waters with some of its trusted clients, and they
"positively received it," Linnihan said.
"We have a ton of
experience in the small to medium-size business support, and Gant employees use
Airbnb where appropriate," Linnihan said. "So we know that for the
right situation, this is the most productive and cost-efficient way to travel."
Private accommodations isn't going away, Linnihan added. "We thought it
was just a matter of time until we saw other players become more deeply
involved in this, and we want to lead and we wanted to master it first so we
jumped in."
Airbnb has been making
moves to grow in the corporate space in recent years and as such is
finding a foothold with established players. "TMCs, obviously, are
important within the industry. They're important to our customers," said
Sonia Anderson, key account strategist and partner operations at Airbnb.
"We're looking at finding ways that we can better collaborate and work
with them. This is one way, bringing them content using tools and processes
that companies already use—making ourselves more a part of that ecosystem so we
can better collaborate and work with them."
Gant Travel is an
unsurprising first mover in this space. Though Airbnb struck deals with the
three mega travel management companies back in 2015, Gant is the first TMC in
the SAP Concur ecosystem to partner with Airbnb. The TMC is also a founding
member of the Concur TMC Preferred Partner Program, and Linnihan has said the
company's goal is to make itself the best TMC in the world for Concur.
Gant expects to have more
than 1,500 customers' Concur Travel sites enabled with Airbnb content. Linnihan
expects that through this partnership, Gant will be able to bring in TripLink
Airbnb data and place it into itineraries and its reporting tool as the TMC
does with other TripLink partners.