Airbnb Business Model Canvas [2022 update]

Like Uber and WeWork, Airbnb was founded around the time of the GFC (or Great Recession). The founders rented out an air mattress in their living room – a cheap alternative for guests who needed to save money staying in San Francisco as an additional income source for the hosts to help pay their rent in one of the most expensive cities in the US. The early-day motivations still are some of Airbnb’s most pertinent value propositions for their users.

This is our 2022 update of Airbnb’s business model since we covered them first over 5 years ago. This is also our 3rd major update since with the latest update in 2020.

In the last 14 years, Airbnb has grown to an ample competitor for even the largest hotels chains and online travel agencies. As of Dec ’21 they had:

• 6m active listings

  (it was over 7m before the pandemic)

• Listings in 100k+ cities

  in

  220+ countries 

• 4m+ hosts
• $150b+

  generated for hosts in over

  1b

  guest arrivals all time (and $13.8k earned by typical US host in 2021) 

The most relevant changes since our last update are related to the pandemic. It was a major stress test for Airbnb’s business model and we will elaborate throughout this article including their financial results that allow some interesting conclusions to this end.

We recommend you also read the companion article on Uber’s Business Model.