A website over the past several years has been changing the way tourists book stays at rentals and how the bed-and-breakfast model functions along the Gulf Coast. From Sarasota to Anna Maria, rooms are being booked through AirBNB at high rates, with some business owners reporting more than half their reservations being made through the service. “Response has been tremendous. We get most of our rentals through AirBNB,” said Danny Chin, who with wife Brenda has eight properties listed on AirBNB, three of those in Anna Maria. 

And what is the this service? The AirBNB online booking service was launched in 2008 to build a community of people listing and discovering accommodations, whether that meant reserving space at a castle in Europe or a guest house in Sarasota. Today, some 40 million guests can book stays in more than 1.5 million listings worldwide, many of them here in Southwest Florida.

Sarasota couple Detlev von Kessel and Kristina Syromyatnitkova first started using the site as guests booking rooms in such destinations as Russia, Germany and Italy. Today, they are booking out part of their own home near Siesta Key. “We are basically renting out one side that has one room, a bathroom, a second oven and only a little kitchenette,” von Kessel said. “People love it.” Using the website has helped them keep a 70-percent occupancy rate during the last year for the dates when the space is listed for rental; the couple only rents when they are in town to provide personal amenities.

Of course, the site is hardly the first to book vacations rentals online, and both Chin and von Kessel say they also book through established sites like VRBO.com and TripAdvisor. “I’ll say, a different group uses it,” Chin says The [AirBNB customer] tends to be younger. They are the same people who are using Uber.” But between 50 and 60 percent of the Chins’ business these days comes through AirBNB.