Airbnb continues hotel push: 'Stepping on the gas'

Airbnb’s hotel initiative was the dominant topic of conversation during the company’s second quarter earnings call on Thursday night.

“The hotel initiative is going significantly better than I expected, and I had high expectations,” Airbnb CEO and co-founder Brian Chesky said while addressing one of many questions about the vertical.

Chesky said he was unsure how hotels would be received, given that Airbnb is known for homes, but that’s where his expectations “were not high enough.”

“After we began outreach for hotels, things flipped, and what we are now seeing is a huge amount of influx of interest from hotels wanting to list on Airbnb,” he said.

Analysts also asked about which markets have been improving conversion rates and markets for expansion, but CFO Ellie Mertz did not name specific markets. Previously, the acquisition strategy has been in regulatory-constrained markets where Airbnb hasn't been able to fulfill demand.

“I would say, more broadly, we’re looking to add inventory that can be accretive to the platform versus compete with homes, and so we’re very selective with regard to what we add to make sure that it’s adding great inventory.”

Earlier this week, Airbnb announced it is partnering with boutique hotel operator Lark to bring over 75 properties to Airbnb’s platform. Lou Zameryka, Airbnb’s global head of hotel enterprise and connectivity partnerships, confirmed that all of Lark’s U.S. properties would be brought on. Lark also operates properties in Mexico.

Similar to previous quarters, hotels are still accounting for a single-digit percentage  of nights booked on the platform. However, the segment is also growing three times as quickly as the homes business.

Chesky also said that seeing hotels next to homes on the platform hasn’t bothered customers—or hosts.

“We haven’t really gotten much back from our core hosts. Mostly, they just want to make sure their bookings are going up, and our results show they are,” Chesky said.

For guests, the executives noted that 35% of first-time hotel guests returned to Airbnb to book a home.

“Essentially, one is making the other stronger, and that's the basic theory of Airbnb. We are absolutely going to be stepping on the gas, given the reception. And we are focused not just on supply constrained markets, but all markets.”

AI, Services & Experiences

Chesky and Mertz highlighted cost-savings related to AI implementation, including those related to customer service cost per booking, which declined 16% year over year thanks in part to its AI assistant.

“We expect those costs to continue to decline as our AI assistant resolves more and more issues and, of course, as we bring it to voice,” Chesky said.

Airbnb’s Services and Experiences verticals were discussed as well, with Chesky noting that, so far, the car rental business has seen the strongest traction.

“I think the thing that we’re surprised by, in a good way, is that the length of the reservation is long. In fact, it’s longer than the average length of stay. We thought the average length of a car rental would be shorter than an Airbnb stay,” Chesky said.

However, luggage storage has been a “sleeper hit.”

“That’s not the sexiest service, I would say, but I will say that what we’ve learned is that every service in and of itself has value,” he said.

Q2 2026 financial results

Airbnb reported revenue of $3.6 billion in Q2 2026, a 17% year-over-year increase from Q2 2025.

Net income was $816 million, up from $642 million in Q2 2025. Adjusted EBIDTA also increased 21% year over year to $1.3 billion.

Gross booking value was up 16% year over year to $27.2 billion, while nights and seats booked were up 10% to 148.3 million.

The STR giant spent $875 million on sales and marketing, which was also up from $691 million spent in Q2 2025.

During the second quarter, the company said it “leaned into local marketing campaigns in key growth markets, reinforcing relevancy to each country”—a strategy it said has been successful.

“Over the last 12 months, the average growth rate of net nights booked on an origin basis in our expansion markets was roughly twice that of our core markets.”

Airbnb saw high-single digit growth in nights and seats booked in North America in Q2 2026, accounting for the highest growth it has seen in almost three years.

Europe, the Middle East and Africa also saw high-single digit growth in nights and seats booked, while Asia-Pacific saw high-teens growth. Airbnb said its “hyper-local approach” in the APAC region led to positive results in countries like Japan (one of its expansion markets), where origin net nights booked grew in the high teens thanks to domestic travel momentum. Origin net nights in India also grew 60% year over year and Airbnb saw double the number of first-time bookers compared to Q2 2025.

Latin America saw 20% year-over-year growth, with Brazil, another expansion market, continuing to experience “meaningful demand.”