You can now book a chef or personal trainer while traveling with Airbnb

Airbnb is aiming to be a full-service travel platform with new features, offerings and a redesign of its app. That includes a new “Airbnb Services” section where users can book chefs, masseuses, personal trainers and other types of service professionals to come to their Airbnb.

Nearly a decade ago, Airbnb envisioned being more than just an app to book a home for a vacation. Its latest redesign could be a major push toward becoming the kind of “end-to-end travel app,” that CEO Brian Chesky has said he wants to create. The online vacation home-rental marketplace has made efforts toward this goal in the past. It launched “Airbnb Experiences,” tours, classes and other activities that can be booked on its app; a travel magazine; hotel-like offerings; and “adventure” tour packages that included lodging, transportation and food. Then the Covid-19 pandemic hit — months before the company went public — and Airbnb was forced to scale back some of those ambitions to focus on its core offerings. Now, Airbnb is returning to that vision of a full-service travel platform with new features, offerings and a redesign of its app. That includes a new “Airbnb Services” section where users can book chefs, masseuses, personal trainers and other types of service professionals to come to their Airbnb. The new offerings could make Airbnb more competitive with travel platforms such as Expedia and Kayak, as well as with hotels, which can draw customers away from home stays with amenities such as restaurants and spas. “One of the reasons why people don’t always want to stay with Airbnb (is) because we didn’t necessarily have all these other activities that you could do around the stay that maybe some more traditional hospitality has,” Airbnb Chief Business Officer Dave Stephenson told CNN in an interview ahead of the announcement on Tuesday.