“…Our partnerships with state governments are in the direction to make sure that there is an Airbnb for everyone in the remotest part of India,” Bajaj said, adding that the firm also has a partnership with the National Commission of Women for “creating more women entrepreneurs.”

Mr Bajaj said the company had a target of creating 50,000 hospitality entrepreneurs by 2020 in India out of which it wants at least 15,000 to be women. In the process of creating entrepreneurs in the travel and hospitality segment, the company’s Experiences platform would play a major role, he said. The specialised platform offers tourists local experiences such as adventure sports, cuisines, visit to small-scale industries including handicrafts among others in collaboration of local hosts and people having expertise in a particular craft, the company said. The platform was launched in 2016 with 500 experiences across 12 cities globally and now the platform offers over 15,000 experiences in over 800 cities, Mr Bajaj said.

The online platform last week announced a partnership with the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority to provide tourists with local and traditional experiences in the country through the Airbnb Experiences platform. Talking about the scope of the experiences platform in India, Bajaj said the service has been launched in Delhi and Goa so far and the response has been positive.