Airbnb told shareholders on November 5 that it now lists thousands of boutique and independent hotels across more than 60 destinations, and that hotels are still a single-digit percentage of total nights booked.
The disclosure is in Airbnb’s third-quarter shareholder letter, filed with the SEC. The company reported 155.0 million nights and seats booked, up 16% year over year, and $27.7 billion in gross booking value, up 21%. Nights booked on its app rose 29% and made up 66% of the total, up from 62% a year earlier.
The letter’s framing of hotels is specific. “Approximately 35% of guests whose first Airbnb booking is a hotel return to book a home,” it says, based on guests who booked a hotel between October 2024 and September 2025 and came back within 365 days. Airbnb adds that this “shows how hotels can introduce new guests to Airbnb and help grow our core homes business.”
Reach is widening as well. On October 22 Airbnb launched a partnership with American Express that brings more than one million Airbnb listings to Amex Travel, and it plans to start rolling out an AI trip agent to guests in the first half of 2027.
For independent and boutique operators, the letter shows what Airbnb counts a hotel listing as worth: a way to bring new guests into its homes business. A hotel weighing the channel can ask its channel manager what the listing costs per booking, whether rates must match its direct site, and who owns the guest record after the stay. Those terms were not in the letter. Operators already selling through the distribution platforms covered here earlier can compare Airbnb against them on net revenue per night, and the earlier Wyndham Rewards move into vacation homes shows the same traffic running the other direction.
Source: Airbnb, Q3 2026 shareholder letter (SEC Exhibit 99.1)
