Airbnb and Concur have been TripLink buddies since 2014.
Plus, the home-sharing site has fed expense data directly to Concur since the
same year.
Since last summer, however, the two companies have been
working on a deeper partnership: integrating Airbnb listings into the Concur booking
platform.
Announced in July 2017, the partnership will bear fruit this
month. Airbnb listings will appear alongside traditional lodging content.
Properties flowing into Concur will meet Airbnb for Work criteria, which means
they must be an entire home or a private room with ensuite or private bath.
They also must include amenities like Wi-Fi, a workspace and, as of last month,
a smoke detector. Hosts must maintain an Airbnb rating of 4.8 or higher over
the previous 12 months. They also must have responded within 24 hours to 90% of
booking requests and must offer a moderate or flexible cancellation policy.
"Companies have a number of use cases for Airbnb
bookings: tight inventory during major conventions and events, low-cost
alternatives in higher-priced markets, more convenient locations or nonstandard
stays where a small group might want to stay together. There are lots of
long-tail examples, including business trips with a leisure component,"
said SAP Concur chief product officer and executive vice president Tim
MacDonald. "We've seen significant growth in Airbnb bookings via our
TripLink connection and in the data coming through expense reports. It was
clearly an integration that was right for our customers."
Sixty-three percent of SAP Concur's Fortune 500 customers
expensed Airbnb stays in 2017, according to the company. Overall, SAP Concur
clients using the home-sharing platform increased 42% from 2016 to 2017. The
U.S. saw the highest percentage of Airbnb bookings, according to Concur expense
data. Growth has spread globally with an 85% increase in Airbnb bookings in
Asia/Pacific and a 65% increase in Europe and the Middle East.
SAP Concur expense data supports MacDonald's use case
examples; there were quarterly spikes around events in certain cities like
Austin's South by Southwest, and 56% of Airbnb business travel bookings
included a weekend stay in 2017.
SAP Concur clients can choose to expose Airbnb content in
the tools or not, MacDonald said. They don't have to be formal Airbnb for Work
clients to take advantage. "All clients can have access to the content if
they want it."
The Concur booking tool displays ratings, reviews and other
critical information so travelers can make informed decisions. The process,
however, takes travelers out of the Concur tool and into Airbnb to complete the
booking. The data automatically ports back into Concur to merge with other
itinerary details and for travel reporting.
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Source: Business Travel News