Fintech giant Revolut has unveiled a new holiday home rental feature today as it looks to broaden its reach in the travel market and snap up market share from Airbnb.
The $33bn valuation firm, headquartered in London, said today that the new Homes feature will allow users to book listed homes directly through the Revolut app and earn up to four per cent cashback depending on users’ Revolut plans.
Homes will sit alongside Revolut’s accommodation booking service, Revolut Stays, which launched last year to challenge the likes of Expedia and Bookings.com, as well as travel services like travel insurance, and currency exchange.
The new foray marks a direct challenge to Airbnb and signals an acceleration of the firm’s ambitions to achieve so-called ‘super app’ status, where it can serve as a one-stop shop for everything users need.
Revolut chiefs said today the move would allow the firm to account for shifting tastes in travel.
“When it comes to travel, we know that our customer’s needs are changing more and more. Big or small, budget or bougie, local homes or chic-hotels – our customers want to book any kind of place, all in one place,” Christopher Guttridge, general manager of Lifestyle Products at Revolut, said in a statement.
Homes will initially roll-out to users in the UK and Europe and will look to eventually leverage its 20m global user base. Airbnb in comparison had around four million listed hosts and six million listings as of March.
