The nuances of group travel can be quite the hassle, and according to Tara Bunch, head of global operations at Airbnb, it's also been a major pain point for Airbnb users and hosts.

“The vast majority of our trips are group trips,” Bunch said entrepreneur, noting that over 80% of all Airbnb bookings are for group travel. “Every launch we go through, we spend a lot of time looking at customer feedback and host feedback.”

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On Wednesday, Airbnb unveiled changes to group travel as part of its Summer 2024 event in Los Angeles and how a few seemingly small tweaks are set to change the game for both customers and the people who eagerly await them.

Travel invitations

If you've ever stayed at an Airbnb, you're probably familiar with the burden that falls on the person booking the trip. Historically, they have been the only person who has all the information about the stay, including check-in and check-out instructions, Wi-Fi passwords and any other general information.

Now, users who book a stay on Airbnb can invite other guests to join the trip and have access to all the details of the reservation, including the address of the stay once it's booked. This way, the host will be able to see all the guests that will be coming too.

“I'm a host and I like to know who's coming,” Bunch said. “It's a huge help for the host to know how many people are coming and to be able to see who those people are and what they're interested in or what questions they have ahead of time.”

Guests can also only accept a travel invitation if they have an Airbnb account, which will encourage travelers who have not yet registered on the platform to create an account and help increase user growth for Airbnb.

“I think it's just a good win for the visitors, for the hosts, for us,” Bunch said.

Shared wish lists

As part of creating a shared group for a trip, guests will be able to create a shared wish list of potential Airbnb spots.

Before the new update, guests had to submit links to Airbnb listings and create their own wish lists of potential properties to book.

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Now, the wishlist feature will be interactive, where anyone invited to the trip will have the ability to add a property they want to suggest to a shared list for all other participants to see.

Guests will be able to vote up or down their favorite or least favorite properties and add comments under potential properties, sparking conversations and making planning a collaborative effort.

“It opens up the ability for people to have a much more interactive ride that's more fun,” Bunch said. “The idea of ​​voting on a property is fun, it's gamified a bit and it gets people engaged.”

Group messages

One of the biggest game changers for hosts is the new group messaging feature.

Historically, only the person who made the Airbnb reservation had access to the host and was usually the person who had to field all guest questions in a face-to-face contact situation with the host.

^{via Airbnb}

Now, all users added to the trip will be able to communicate with the host in a group chat setting, right down to the ability to react to different messages like you do in iMessage.

“Now that we have group messaging, the host will be able to see who's coming and it gives the host a little more information about the group,” Bunch said. “If they have maybe specific questions or needs, you're going to get more of that kind of interaction before they get there.”

Members will also have the ability to mute chat if they don't want to be disturbed, but Bunch says the features will actively give travelers “the advantage of increased communication with the host” and vice versa.

Another feature of the group message will include some automated AI responses from the host to travelers for frequently asked questions, such as instructions about Wi-Fi or the door code.

via Airbnb

Instead of answering each individual inquisition or request, simple questions will be answered on the messaging platform without the hosts having to type a response.

“It will help you respond quickly and be more productive, which will be a big win for hosts,” Bunch said.

What's next for Airbnb?

Although this week's introductions should help hosts when it comes to group travel, Bunch says the platform still has a ways to go when it comes to making it a truly host-friendly place.

“There's a lot of focus around perfecting the core service — the product, the app, the messaging,” Bunch explains. “We want to make hosting mainstream and give hosts tools so they can feel more confident and be more willing to host.”

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Bunch also says that international expansion is a long-term goal for Airbnb, with hopes of entering markets where hosting may be more of a foreign concept.

“Building brand awareness in some markets that maybe didn't have as much awareness is a big focus we have in international growth,” Bunch says. “Markets where people maybe haven't thought about hosting, but once they see it's easy, helping them find a co-host and giving them tools, giving them financial dashboards, all the things that we're working in the background to make waiting easier and less scary.