In an interview with The Information, Booking.com CEO Gillian Tans said the firm, which specializes in hotel listings, is determined this year to become more of a force in short-term home and apartment rentals in the U.S. In a sign of its commitment, Booking.com quietly hired away longtime Airbnb executive Olivier Gremillon to run its own homes division last month.
Meanwhile, Airbnb is beginning to go after Booking.com’s bread and butter. Airbnb emailed journalists on Wednesday an outside report that showed small hotels felt squeezed by charges imposed by online travel agents like Booking.com.
According to Apptopia, Booking.com had more than 41 million downloads and 14.5 million average monthly active users, while Airbnb had nearly 37 million downloads and 13 million monthly active users.
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