Airbnb has expanded its offering beyond accommodation with the launch of Trips.

“Until now, Airbnb has been about homes,” Brian Chesky, Airbnb CEO, said in a statement on Thursday. “Today, Airbnb is launching Trips, bringing together where you stay, what you do, and the people you meet all in one place. We want to make travel magical again by putting people back at the heart of every trip.”

The company describes Trips as a “people-powered platform”. Currently the platform offers experiences, while flights and services are expected to be added in the future.

Cape Town and Nairobi are among the first 12 cities chosen for the launch of the new offering. Other cities include Los Angeles, San Francisco, Miami, Detroit, Havana, London, Paris, Florence, Tokyo and Seoul.

Trip Itinerary is a feature that gives users the ability to book and add experiences or things to do. According to Airbnb, over time, this capability will evolve to offer personalised and contextual suggestions based on location and recommendations during a trip. “Airbnb’s vision is to ultimately cater for every aspect of a trip, making it both easy and magical from start to finish.”

According to Airbnb, the platform will offer users “unprecedented access to local passions and interests” such as violin making in Paris, truffle hunting in Tuscany, or marathon running in Kenya. “Discover the hidden gems that only locals know about, via personal recommendations, and socialise with other travellers and locals at exciting events,” the company said.

Experiences are “handcrafted activities designed and led by local experts”, says Airbnb. These can be single activities or multi-day experiences and include those where guests can give something back to communities through non-profit organisations. At launch, the offering includes 500 experiences.

Under a ‘Places’ tab, users can access guidebooks, meet-ups and audio walks. Airbnb describes this offering, which is based on recommendations from Airbnb hosts, neighbourhood insiders and local influencers, as “an alternative to aggregated tourist lists that funnel people to the same places”.

At launch, 100 Insider Guidebooks will be available in six cities – Los Angeles, San Francisco, Havana, Nairobi, Detroit and Seoul, while Places includes over one million individual recommendations worldwide. A partnership between Airbnb and restaurant booking platform, Resy, will make it possible in future to book tables at local restaurants directly through the Airbnb app.

Airbnb has partnered with Detour to offer access to experiential audio walking tours. Audio tours will initially be available for Los Angeles, while San Francisco, Paris, London, Tokyo and Seoul will follow next year.

Airbnb’s accommodation offering in 191 countries is available to book alongside experiences in available cities.

The launch of Trips also sees the introduction of a new identity authentication process, where hosts and guests will be asked to scan an official government ID (for example a passport, or driving licence) and then take a photograph of themselves.

To read more about Airbnb’s new offering, click here.