Airbnb is preparing a major shift beyond vacation rentals. CEO Brian Chesky announced at Skift Global Forum that the company will roll out a dedicated hotel interface inside its app, signaling the company’s most serious push into hotels since its 2019 acquisition of HotelTonight.
“We are now getting serious about hotels,” Chesky said, noting that the pandemic delayed earlier plans to integrate HotelTonight. The new interface will showcase boutique and independent hotels alongside homes and bed and breakfasts. Airbnb is expected to rebrand its “Homes” tab into “Stays,” introducing swipeable carousels of hotel listings in pilot cities like New York.
The move reflects Airbnb’s efforts to capture travelers who leave its platform when they cannot find a home they like. With 1.6 billion device accesses a year, Chesky argued, “If we just have hotels there, then they’re gonna get an infinite amount of bookings.”
The update follows Airbnb’s recent fee structure change designed to mirror hotel and OTA models, a direct competitive move against Expedia and Booking.com. While Chesky reiterated that homes remain the “heart and soul” of Airbnb, he described hotels as a natural supplement and part of his broader vision to turn Airbnb into a full-service travel platform.
In March 2025, we reported that HotelTonight launched a 10 percent Airbnb credit on hotel bookings after stay completion. This was the first guest-facing tie between HotelTonight and Airbnb, and it created a funnel that nudges hotel users into Airbnb stays without a full points program. That incentive pairs logically with the coming hotel interface, giving Airbnb more supply to retain travelers across vacation rentals and hotels.
