Airbnb names Tripadvisor exec Pepijn Rijvers chief business officer

Airbnb has named Pepijn Rijvers chief business officer, effective Sept. 1.

Rijvers was most recently CBO of Tripadvisor Group, having initially joined the company in April 2025 as president of Viator. He is also a 12-year veteran of Booking.com. 

Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky announced the news in a company-wide email to employees today, specifically highlighting Rijvers’ time at Booking.com.

“Pepijn was one of the strongest operators ever at Booking, and his experience there gave him a clear view of why Airbnb needs to follow a very different path,” Chesky wrote.

“Booking is an intent platform: People arrive knowing where they’re going and use it to complete a transaction. Airbnb has the opportunity to start much earlier—helping people discover where to go, where to stay and what to do when they get there. Pepijn believes that by helping people discover what makes a place special, Airbnb can become the most local brand in the world.”

Notably, Rijvers is the third former Booking.com executive to join Airbnb in recent months.

In May, the short-term rental giant announced that Andrea D’Amico and Lou Zameryka would be joining as VP of hotels and as global head of hotel enterprise, respectively. D’Amico, spent 18 years at Booking.com, rising to VP and managing director for EMEA before departing in 2022, while Zameryka spent 17 years at the online travel agency (OTA), departing in 2023, according to LinkedIn.

Rijvers' appointment also comes amid industry chatter that Airbnb is shifting its business model to become more of an OTA.

Earlier this month, Airbnb announced a partnership with Tripadvisor Group to bring a selection of Tripadvisor experiences to the Airbnb platform, where they will be available to book. The move followed statements made by Chesky on the company’s second-quarter earnings call, where he highlighted Airbnb’s strategy to incrementally build out experiences.

At Airbnb, Rijvers will oversee homes, hotels, enterprise operations and global markets. His time building out experiences at Viator is also likely to benefit Airbnb.

Commenting on the experiences segment and his decision to join Viator in a 2025 PhocusWire interview, Rijvers described it as a fairly immature category in terms of how consumers search and book experiences, as well as the amount of reservations technology that providers use to make a sale. He said he sees opportunity in building a “global marketplace for experiences, which is really an unclaimed space still.”

Rijvers succeeds Dave Stephenson, who joined Airbnb as CFO in 2019 before taking over as the company’s first CBO in 2024. According to Airbnb, Stephenson “has decided to move on from Airbnb” after eight years. 

Stephenson will remain “closely involved” with the transition until his departure at the end of the year, Airbnb said.

Airbnb’s current VP of communications, Fallon O’Connor, will assume a new role as head of communications and people and take on the employee experience business, previously under Stephenson's remit. Stephenson also oversaw partnerships, which will now report to Hiroki Asai, and corporate development and strategy, which will now report to CFO Ellie Mertz.

In response to Rijvers' departure, a Tripadvisor spokesperson said, “We're grateful for Pepijn's many contributions to Tripadvisor Group and wish him all the best in his new role.”