Airbnb on Tuesday named Pepijn Rijvers, who ran Booking.com’s hotels and short-term rental business, as its new chief business officer. He succeeds Dave Stephenson.
The move comes as Airbnb treats expanding its hotels business as a strategic priority. In August, Airbnb said it had added thousands of boutique hotels across 20 cities, including New York, Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, and Singapore.
Rijvers spent more than a dozen years at Booking.com — arguably Airbnb’s main rival — from 2008 to 2021. In addition to his roles in accommodations, he served as chief marketing officer for around five years and launched the company’s China business, a market where