American Express and Airbnb have something new to offer for business travellers

American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has announced a commercial agreement with Airbnb, world's leading community-driven hospitality company. As per the announcement, the new referral partnership will make Airbnb for Business more accessible to AmEx’s GBT customers, while also allowing data transfer and traveller tracking.

Airbnb, founded in 2008, has welcomed more than 100 million guest arrivals globally at Airbnb listings, out of which approximately 10% are business travellers.

As per the announcement, the first phase of the program would see GBT referring a customer to Airbnb, after which individual travellers can book accommodations directly on Airbnb.com using a corporate email address.

The coming weeks would see GBT and Airbnb integrating Airbnb booking information into GBT’s reporting platform, which would allow GBT’s customers to easily track their travellers’ Airbnb bookings. After this, GBT would automatically get the reservation details for each business trip that they make.

“Business travellers want the freedom to choose accommodations that align with their personal and professional tastes,” said Wes Bergstrom, Vice President, Global Supplier Relations, American Express Global Business Travel. “At the same time, traveller safety and security are a top priority for companies. As the first travel management company (TMC) to partner with Airbnb, our customers can further evolve their travel policies and offer their travellers the ability to book preferred accommodations.”

The first phase of this partnership will be live in the U.S. in the coming weeks, while the programme will expand to additional countries later.

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