Airbnb adds Xhosa, Zulu and Swahili to its platform

Airbnb is delighted to announce that hosts and guests can access Airbnb platform in Xhosa, Zulu and Swahili for the first time, alongside 28 additional languages.

While Airbnb is already used in more than 191 countries and regions around the world, the company is constantly working to make the platform accessible to more people.

Recently, the company doubled the number of languages in which hosts and guests can use Airbnb.

Now supporting 62 languages - including Xhosa, Zulu and Swahili - the Airbnb platform is accessible to more than 4 billion native speakers. With these new languages, the company is working to bring economic opportunity to even more hosts, and making it easier for more guests to experience travel that is local, authentic and unique.

In South Africa, there are more than 20 000 listings on the platform and home sharing continues to bring a wealth of benefits to the local economy, tourism industry and communities. Recently released data by Airbnb shows that:

- More than 2 million guests have stayed in homes listed on Airbnb in South Africa since 2008

- In 2018 alone, the estimated direct economic impact of Airbnb in the country was more than R8.7 billion which would be the equivalent of 22,000 jobs across South Africa

"I am delighted that the Airbnb community can now access Airbnb in Xhosa, Zulu and Swahili. Home sharing can help regular people create new economic opportunities for themselves in the homes and communities they live in, especially those who live in under-resourced areas," said Airbnb’s Country Manager for South Africa, Velma Corcoran.

"With Airbnb now supporting Xhosa and Zulu, I hope more potential hosts in some of South Africa’s biggest under-resourced areas consider the real economic opportunity of becoming a tourism entrepreneur."

Below are the 31 new languages now available on Airbnb:

- Albanian (Albania)

- Armenian (Armenia)

- Azeri (Azerbaijan)

- Bosnian (Bosnia)

- Bulgarian (Bulgaria)

- Traditional Chinese (Hong Kong SAR)

- English (Australia)

- English (Canada)

- English (United Kingdom)

- Estonian (Estonia)

- French (Canada)