Airbnb isn't just about booking a room anymore

LOS ANGELES -- Airbnb wants to take a much more active role in planning your vacation.

The company is launching a redesigned version of its app with a new Trips feature that allows users to plan out their entire trip, not just their their accommodations, Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky announced at the company's annual Airbnb Open conference Thursday. Airbnb is rolling out the new features in 12 cities, including Detroit, San Francisco, Miami, Paris, London, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Nairobi, and Seoul, and plans to expand to more cities soon.

The new Trips feature, out now on iOS and Android, will help travelers find and book "experiences" -- host-guided activities that range from a few hours to a few days. A traveler in Italy, for instance, could be book an experience with a Tuscan truffle hunter or a traveler in LA could tag along with an artist to their studio.

The goal, Chesky says, is to provide travelers with a way of connecting with experiences they wouldn't typically be able to have as a tourist. "These aren't tours: you immerse, you join the local communities," he said onstage Thursday.

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The app also includes a Places feature that helps you find tips on places to go and things to do that are curated by local hosts. Places is meant to provide travelers with "insider guides" that include recommendations that wouldn't appear in most guidebooks or other tourist resources. Airbnb is also adding restaurant reservations to its app -- via a partnership with Resy -- so you can book tables as you browse recommendations.

The company is also partnering with Detour, a startup that makes app-enabled audio guides, so travelers can go on audio walks in the cities they are staying in.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Trips is live now in the Airbnb app in 12 cities: Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Nairobi, Cape Town, Tokyo and Seoul but the company plans to expand to 50 cities soon and the CEO said their goal is to eventually have Trips available everywhere Airbnb is.

Chesky also previewed several new features, including car rentals, grocery delivery and flight-planning, that he said would make Airbnb more of a "platform" than a single service, though he didn't elaborate on when such features could launch.

The update marks the company's latest move in an ongoing effort to expand its service beyond short-term rentals alone. "We think travel can be magical and easy," Chesky says. "The magic is in the people, it's all about immersing in local communities."

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It builds on previous efforts by the company to portray their hosts as travel experts who can take on more of a concierge role than a temporary landlord. Airbnb redesigned its main app earlier this year with a new guidebooks feature where hosts curate recommendations about places in their neighborhood and new personalized search results. The update was part of a broader campaign where the company encouraged its guests "Don't go there. Live there."

The update also comes as the short term rental company is under increasing regulatory scrutiny in a number of cities. Earlier in the week, the company reached an agreement with its home city of San Francisco to provide information about hosts and guests to the city -- a regulation the company had previously opposed -- following city lawmakers' attempts to limit rentals. The company is facing similar challenges in New York, where city officials have proposed a bill that would fine Airbnb hosts who list their apartment on the company's site.