In 2007, Airbnb co-founders Brian and Joe hosted the first three Airbnb guests: Michael, Kat, and Amol. At the time, none of them thought they were onto something big. Brian and Joe simply needed to pay the rent. And Michael, Kat, and Amol needed a place to stay during a design conference. Five years ago, in the summer of 2010, roughly 47,000 people stayed with Airbnb hosts. This summer, nearly 17 million total guests stayed with Airbnb hosts around the world. That means that in the last five years, summer travel on Airbnb has grown 353 times over.
August 8 was the biggest night in Airbnb history, with nearly 1 million guests staying with hosts worldwide. If the Airbnb community was a city, on August 8 it would have been the 10th largest city in the United States. That night, Airbnb guests were staying in 150 different countries around the world – even in destinations as far-flung as Madagascar, Greenland, and the Faroe Islands.
At this point five years ago, fewer than 90,000 total guests had ever stayed with Airbnb hosts. Today, that number is nearly 55 million. Total guests have grown more than 600x in just five years.
The Airbnb guests traveling this summer came from all over the world, traveling from 57,000 different cities. The average age of these travelers was 35 years old, and 54% of the guests were women and 46% were men.
These guests traveled over 10 billion miles to their Airbnb destinations. That’s enough to fly from Earth to Pluto and back again. The most popular routes for Airbnb guests weren’t quite so out-of-this-world. Three of the biggest routes were Paris to Lisbon, New York City to the Catskills and Hudson Valley, and Seoul to Osaka.
These guests were staying in unique listings in hundreds of countries. In fact, over 10,000 guests stayed in tree houses on Airbnb this summer, over 12,000 guests stayed in yurts, and nearly 13,000 guests stayed in castles. Guests stayed everywhere from a private island in Nicaragua to cave homes in the Greek Islands.
Airbnb guests this summer stayed with hosts in over 150 different countries.
A study by former White House National Economic Advisor Gene Sperling found that the supplemental money earned by our U.S. hosts essentially represents a 14 percent annual raise for middle class families on our platform, and comes at a time when middleclass income has stagnated across the U.S. The average host in the study earns approximately $7,350 – vital income for middle-class households trying to make ends meet.
Thousands of hosts are preparing to open their doors to travelers when the Pope visits Philadelphia and Cuba. In terms of listings, Philadelphia and Cuba are Airbnb’s two fastest-growing markets over the past six months.
