Millions of people are now more flexible about where they live and work.
They're spreading out to thousands of towns and cities,
and they're staying for weeks, months, or even entire seasons at a time.
A new world of travel has emerged.
And just like millions of other people,
I don't have to be back in office five days a week.
So Sophie and I hit the road.
And we saw a lot of cool stuff, but it was really clear,
this is just the tip of the iceberg.
Because there's this whole world of Airbnb,
millions of unique homes just waiting to be discovered.
And we thought this was a perfect time to create a new Airbnb
for this new world of travel.
And so we've created the biggest change to Airbnb in a decade.
Introducing the Airbnb 2022 Summer Release,
and it starts with Airbnb Categories.
For 25 years, the way you search for travel online has been the same.
There's a big box.
It's a search box and it asks you a question:
Where are you going?
So the first problem is,
you have to actually think of a place to go.
We could show you places that you would never have thought to search for.
That's why we've created a whole new design,
built around Airbnb Categories.
Let me show you.
So the first thing you'll notice when you open the new Airbnb app
is all of these incredible categories.
Airbnb Categories are collections of homes
organized by what makes them unique.
You can search by what kind of trip you want to experience.
Let's say you're with your family,
and you've been stuck in the city for a while
and you want to get out.
We now have a Camping Category or a Countryside Category,
and if you really want to get out of town, there's even the Arctic.
Or if you want to go to the desert,
we have incredible Desert homes.
Look at this place in Pioneertown.
Now most people wouldn't think to type in Pioneertown,
but you can discover these incredible homes here.
We have a world of Castles.
We don't just have Castles.
We have a lot of them.
Design is probably my favorite category.
These are over 20,000 homes that have been selected
because they're either from notable architects like Frank Lloyd Wright,
or they've been in cool design or architecture magazines.
Or, one of my favorite categories:
"OMG!"
We were trying to think of a name for this category
and the name "OMG!" kind of really summed it up.
Because you have properties
where you're just like, "I can't believe that even exists!"
Including this yellow submarine
in the middle of the woods in New Zealand.
And so categories allow you to search by whatever your passion is.
Whatever you're interested in,
and it could lead you to a whole world of possibilities
and towns you would've never known to search for.
But categories also work when you're searching for a location,
and this is something I'm really excited to show you.
So let's say we want to go to France.
So I go to France here and I search,
and we have all the results here and all homes.
But now you'll see at the top we have categories.
Categories like Historical Homes.
Now each of these categories are specific to location,
like there's historic homes in France or vineyards.
I mean, a lot of people love going wine-tasting in France,
but there's some things in France you probably didn't know about, like surfing.
There's now a Surfing Category in France.
There is literally a category for everyone.
We've created a way for you to have even more options
when you're looking for longer stays.
It's a new feature that we call Split Stays.
Split Stays shows up
whenever you're searching for a stay of longer than a week.
It splits your trip between two different homes, so let me show you.
I want to go to France for a month this summer
and I'm going to bring Sophie with me, obviously.
And I'm going to go down here, and you'll see some Split Stays.
Split Stays is our opportunity
to create a little itinerary of two homes, back to back.
It pairs the right two homes together so you can have a longer stay.
Or you can try two different homes.
So Split Stays are cool
because you can also use them with Airbnb Categories.
So let's say there's a category you're interested in.
I love national parks, so I'm going to go to "National parks".
And here it is.
Split your time between Joshua Tree and Zion.
So now Sophie and I can stay in two national parks.
A lot of people haven't really left their house much for two years.
This summer is gonna be the first time a lot of people
step outside their world and go somewhere else.
And we want them to feel like we've got their back when they do that.
And so we are creating AirCover for guests.
The most comprehensive set of free protections in travel.
AirCover is always included and always free,
and comes with these protections:
Booking Protection Guarantee,
for the unlikely event a Host cancels
your booking within a month of arrival.
Check-In Guarantee.
If for some reason you can't get into your Airbnb,
and a Get-What-You-Booked Guarantee.
If your Airbnb is not as advertised,
for instance, the AC is broken
or there are fewer bedrooms than advertised.
Now in all three cases we'll find you
a similar or better home, or refund you.
And AirCover also provides a 24-hour safety line,
so if you ever feel unsafe, you get priority access
to specially trained agents,
and AirCover is completely unmatched in the travel industry.
There is literally no other product like this.
So that is the Airbnb 2022 Summer Release,
with a new way to search
designed around Airbnb Categories, Split Stays, and AirCover for guests.
Sophie!
When I was, like, staying in these different homes
and having the experience that a guest on Airbnb would have,
I had a sense of wonder and curiosity.
We wanted you to be able to have
this whole world of possibilities as well.
What our new product is able to do is open that world.
I'm so excited about what we've made
and I'm even more excited for you to try it out.