Shaping Balanced Travel: From Travel Trends to Responsible Tourism
Summary
This on-stage interview at ITB Berlin 2026 features Kathrin Anselm, General Manager of Central & Eastern Europe at Airbnb, in conversation with host Lea Jordan. The session explores how Airbnb is responding to and helping shape a more balanced travel landscape, with a focus on rural and nature-based tourism, responsible growth, regulation, and platform-driven tourism dispersal.
Anselm opens with a striking data point: rural travel on Airbnb has surged by nearly 90% over the past five years and now accounts for roughly 60% of all Airbnb bookings. This represents a fundamental structural shift from Airbnb's origins as a city-break platform. The demographic driving this shift is Gen Z, who search for and book rural travel at twice the rate of the average Airbnb user, motivated by desires to relax, de-stress, reconnect with nature, and disconnect from technology — a trend Anselm frames as travelers seeking personal 'balance.'
On tourism dispersal, Anselm highlights that Airbnb has five times more listings in rural Germany than in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich combined. Hosts in rural Germany earn an average of €4,300 per year through Airbnb, with one-third reporting they needed that supplemental income to offset rising living costs. Airbnb guests in Germany spend approximately €100 per day locally, creating direct economic impact in communities outside major city centers.
A key announcement made at ITB Berlin 2026 was Airbnb's €1 million partnership fund with the Deutsche Tourismus Verband (DTV) to support rural hospitality projects across Germany, with individual grants of up to €100,000 per project. Applications were set to open soon following the conference.
On sustainability, 80% of Airbnb hosts have adopted at least one environmental practice. Airbnb is partnering with Poldan (a green energy provider in Munich), has collaborated with the city of Hamburg on climate-resilient urban greening, and is investing in projects such as reforestation and wetland restoration.
Anselm discussed Airbnb's product design philosophy, noting that the platform has 200 million verified guest profiles — more than the number of passport holders in the United States — providing a data foundation for personalization and recommendation systems. Tools like Airbnb's flexible search and new experiences and services categories are designed to inspire off-the-beaten-path travel. She noted that AI is actively being integrated into Airbnb's product stack to improve discovery and recommendation, with more launches expected in 2026.
On regulation, Anselm stated that 80% of Airbnb's top 200 markets already operate under some form of short-term rental regulation. She emphasized that Airbnb actively supported the new EU-level short-term rental regulation framework, which came into force in May 2025. Airbnb's city portal allows municipalities to access anonymized platform data to inform transparent, proportionate regulation — a model Anselm advocates as the future of platform-city collaboration.
Closing on an optimistic note, Anselm argued that travel is one of the few industries positioned to remain a force for human connection and understanding, particularly given polarized geopolitical conditions, because bringing people together builds empathy and reduces division.
Key Takeaways
- •Rural travel on Airbnb has surged by nearly 90% over the past five years and now accounts for roughly 60% of all bookings, marking a fundamental structural shift from Airbnb's origins as a city-break platform. Anselm described this as 'a profound change' rather than a short-lived trend.
- •Gen Z is the unexpected engine of rural travel growth, searching for and booking nature and rural destinations at twice the rate of the average Airbnb user. Their core motivations are relaxation, de-stressing, disconnecting from technology, and reconnecting with nature — which Anselm framed as a generational search for personal balance.
- •In Germany alone, Airbnb has five times more listings in rural and nature areas than in Berlin, Hamburg, and Munich combined. This supply-side distribution is critical to spreading tourism impact beyond saturated urban centers.
- •Airbnb hosts in rural Germany earn an average of €4,300 per year on the platform, and one-third of those hosts report needing that income specifically to cover increased living costs. This demonstrates that short-term rental platforms can serve as a meaningful economic safety net in non-urban communities.
- •Airbnb guests in Germany spend approximately €100 per day on the ground in the local communities where they stay. Combined with the platform's rural distribution, this creates direct and dispersed economic stimulus for small towns and regional destinations.
- •At ITB Berlin 2026, Airbnb announced a €1 million partnership fund with the Deutsche Tourismus Verband (DTV) to support rural hospitality projects across Germany, with grants of up to €100,000 per project. Applications were expected to open shortly after the conference, making it a concrete, actionable commitment to rural community development.
- •80% of Airbnb hosts have already adopted at least one environmental practice. Airbnb is furthering sustainability through a partnership with green energy provider Poldan in Munich, a collaboration with Hamburg on climate-resilient urban greening, and investments in reforestation and wetland restoration projects.
Transcript
Now, we've talked about hospitality. I really love that conversation. I hope you did, too. Now, we're going to shift and this is a special session uh for me personally and I think for ITB as well because we're going to have our official co-host Airbnb now on stage uh for two sessions straight. And um we're going to talk about that travel is growing again, but it's not growing evenly. Demand is shifting, expectations are changing as I said earlier as well and the industry is being challenged to f...
