BOOKING AIRBNB FOR BUSINESS NOW LEGIT

Like many others, you want to be a good employee and help your company save money, so you booked an Airbnb listing instead of a fancy hotel room for that business trip you’re taking next week.

Well, Airbnb has been watching you and all the others like you, and today the company is unleashing a couple of new things to officially help you when you do that: A partnership with Concur to help with business travel expense management, and Business Travel on Airbnb, a portal to help business travelers manage all aspects of a trip in one place.

In its partnership with Concur, Airbnb will be integrated within Concur’s Triplink system, which both helps pull in all of the employee’s travel information even it’s booked outside of the company’s travel system, and also incentivizes employees to be more cost-effective through a rewards system. Airbnb bookings will now be included in Concur-based travel programs. Concur currently provides travel programs for more than 70 percent of Fortune 100 companies, according to the company.

“We’ve noticed that business travelers are increasingly taking advantage of a new generation of suppliers like Airbnb. Employees clearly wantAirbnb in their managed travel program and we think that trajectory will continue,” said Concur executive vice president Tim MacDonald, executive vice president at Concur.

“Our goal is to support customers who want to empower their employees while ensuring that fiscal visibility and duty of care responsibilities are met.”

Business Travel on Airbnb, the company’s attempt at becoming a one-stop-shop for planning and booking entire business trips, is aimed at helping business travelers get better suggestions and resources for their travels, even for groups. More than 35 companies have signed up to participate, including Salesforce, Evernote, Eventbrite, and Lyft.

Source: VentureBeat