Airbnb in Arabic! The Global Accommodation Rental Behemoth’s MENA Version
Airbnb, the world’s largest accommodation rental and tour experience platform, have announced yesterday that their services are going to be available in Arabic, in order to become more accessible to travelers and hosts from the MENA region.
The company has committed to create a localized web version, as well as mobile applications on both Android and iOS. Airbnb promised to create a world where anyone can belong anywhere, as a part of their mission statement, and this announcement comes as a massive stepping stone towards this objective. Every single popular feature of Airbnb is going to be available in Arabic, including: bookable home listings from all over the world, unique experiences from different regions and tons of informative content on traveling or hosting with Airbnb.
Airbnb is already quite famous among the people in Dubai, and rest of the Middle East. Guests and hosts from the region are using this wonderful platform since the very early days of the company to host guests, or to book accommodation on a global scale.
According to Airbnb’s new report, more than 70 thousand listings are available for rent in the Middle Eastern and North African region on their platform. UAE alone accounts for almost 10 thousand listings. UAE hosts have served over 145 thousand guests from all over the globe, which is 63% more than the last year.
Another one of Airbnb’s famous services, the Experience platform, were launched in Dubai in 2017. The Experiences platform of Airbnb basically deals with activities guided by locals. Emirates travelers can get firsthand experience of globally renowned Arab hospitality with this feature. Over 750 Experiences are currently active across the Middle Eastern and North-African region, in countries like UAE, Egypt, Morocco and Jordan. Almost 120 of those Experiences are featured in the UAE.
Airbnb have already started to work to keep their commitment to the region, by signing a MoU (memorandum of understanding) with Dubai Tourism (DTCM) back in 2016, as well as Ras al Khaimah in 2018. The MoU aims to promote tourism diversity and top notch hosting within the region. Airbnb is also collaborating with DCT Abu Dhabi from last year for promoting Emirati Experiences that give the tourists a real flavor of the local community and culture.
“The Middle East and North-Africa region is extremely important to us, so we are delighted to launch Airbnb in Arabic today. People from across the region have been using Airbnb since it was founded ten years ago to book magical travel experiences. We want to create a true sense of belonging for them by ensuring they can do so in their native language going forward. We want to inspire more Arabic speaking travelers to explore their favourite destinations through authentic, local stays and Experiences on the Airbnb platform,” said Hadi Moussa, the Regional Manager of Airbnb in the Middle East and Africa.
To avail the Airbnb platform in Arabic on their desktop, users can simply choose Arabic with the language selector, or change the language to Arabic from the site footer. iOS/Android release #19.20.1 users can also change the app language into Arabic from iOS/Android settings.
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