Airbnb’s UK bookings soar

London – 12 September 2017 – 
Airbnb has seen an 80 percent jump in visitors to Britain in the last year as travellers pour into the country to take advantage of the weaker pound.

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The company said the growth in inbound visitors to the UK using its platform was 81 percent between July 2016 and July 2017, taking visitor numbers to 5.9 million and generating 3.46 billion pounds (US$4.6 billion) for the economy, Reuters reported.

London alone has reached 64,000 active listings, Airbnb said.

Airbnb said the country was its fifth largest home-sharing community in terms of numbers of listings. “The UK continues to break records on Airbnb – both as a world-leading destination and for the benefits that hosting generates for local families and their communities,” said James McClure, general manager for Northern Europe at Airbnb.

Official figures show tourism to Britain has been rising, helped by a drop in the pound since Britain voted to leave the European Union in June 2016.