Protocol Cloud, your weekly guide to the future of enterprise computing. These are units, critics point out, that may have been in the regular rental pool already had Airbnb not made short-term rentals so appealing to landlords. 'In a really short timeframe, a little over two weeks, we have been able to modify and adapt the platform in real time to meet those needs and build this into actual real infrastructure on both sides, the guest and host side,' Lehane told Protocol.īut Airbnb's push - and its hosts' interest in these longer-term rentals - comes with what critics view as a tacit admission that Airbnb has directly impacted the housing market all along. One booking made in March was for 200 days, the company said. Amid the coronavirus outbreak, the company has seen the floor fall out of its travel business, but a noticeable spike in demand for monthly rentals after long-term bookings grew 20% at the end of March, compared with the previous year. 'There's a housing space that needed to be served which is in fact someone's permanent home, but not necessarily year-to-year and certainly not a short-term type of deal,' said Airbnb's head of global policy Chris Lehane. The move prioritizes long-term bookings as one of Airbnb's top three business lines with more than one million listings now offering monthly stays, ranging from private rooms to entire houses.

On Thursday, the company will unveil a redesigned homepage that features monthly rentals right in between its options for normal stays and Experiences.

As the global travel market has plummeted, Airbnb is pivoting its business to focus on a different kind of rental: long-term stays.

Longterm airbnb