CAPE TOWN, April (ANA) - The world’s largest accommodation platform Airbnb has seen more than two million guests traveling to Africa in the last five years, with more than half that number arriving in the last year alone.
Airbnb manager South Africa, Velma Corcoran, said the platform had seen incredible growth since its launch in 2008 and now boasted close to five million homes in 191 countries across the world. This included 81,000 cities and the platform has seen more than 300 million guests.
“That means 400 guests check in every two minutes. We have also seen great growth in Africa. Last year we surpassed 100,000 homes on Airbnb Africa and we have seen in the last five years more than two million guests traveling to Africa using Airbnb. What is encouraging is that more than half of those guest came in the last year, September 2016 to September 2017.
Corcoran was speaking at World Travel Market on Friday, held at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC).
She added that people no longer want to stay in tourist areas, “they want to explore neighborhood communities and when they go into those communities they spend their money there”.
“Seventy percent of the guests stayed in our main tourist areas, 80% said they wanted to travel locally, and 42% actually spent their money in the communities that they are traveling into.”
She added that the platform has empowered millions of people around the world by allowing them to monetise the spaces in their homes, their passions, and their talents and that it has introduced a roadmap on how to get from 300 million guests to a billion in 10 years.
- African News Agency (ANA)
