USE ONLY INFORMATION BELOW TO WRITE A PARAGRAPH HAVE 170 WORDS TO ANSWER THIS QUESTION, Clearly discuss which one of these trends (Economic Trends, Social Trends, Technological Advances) that Airbnb's business belong to? What is the problems that Airbnb is attempting to solve? Andrew Kitchell has a long history with Airbnb. A tech entrepreneur in San Francisco, Kitchell listed a couch in his apartment on the nascent site in 2009, when it was still called Air Bed and Breakfast. His was one of the first 100 properties to appear on the platform. More than a decade later, with Airbnb having evolved into a multibillion-dollar international company that has reshaped lodging, Kitchell isn't just a host, he's a business partnerand a symbol of just how much Airbnb has changed, and seeks to change, on its road to an initial public offering (IPO). Kitchell's company, Lyric, owns and operates upscale units in urban multifamily apartment buildingswhat Lyric describes as flexible accommodations for the modem traveler"that are rented out on platforms such as Airbnb. In April, Lyric announced a $160 million financing round led by Airbnb, showing both the potential of the four-and-a-half-year-old lodging startup and Airbnb's increasing focus on professional lodging and hosting for upscale and business travelers. We've seen the emergence of professionalization of brands within home sharing, which has led the real estate world to be comfortable with building rooms specifically for Airbnb inventory," says Kitchell. We tell developers that our guests look a lot like the residents you want to be in your units." Kitchell spins Lyric's expansion as part of the emergence of the next generation of short-term rentals. They're professionally managed and located in trendy neighborhoods , with equally trendy decor-ocal artwork on the walls, tastefully minimalist furniture, a pour-over coffee kit featuring locally roasted beans on the counter. Kitchell believes Lyric offers an experience so close to the quality of boutique hotels that business travelers and others feel welcome. Airbnb has similar hopes. As the platform continues to expand its recent moves, from acquiring an array of companies to experimenting with developers to design new inventory for short-term rentals, all appear geared toward frequent and business travelers. Airbnb now has more than 6 million listings in 100.000 cities in 191 countries, a footprint the company argues creates billions of dollars in economic impact. As it inches toward a highly anticipated IPO now expected in 2020, Airbnb has increasingly shown an appetite for comering the lucrative business travel market by supporting more professionalized service from owners who manage and operate multiple units in one or more cities. This larger push includes working with travel managers to allow for more corporate bookingsmore than half a million companies now book travel with Airbnbto instituting Airbnb Plus, a category of pre-qualified rooms that undergo a 100-plus-point inspection for standard amenities such as a stocked kitchen, ironing boards, and a bathroom with toiletries, meant to appeal to more discriminating travelers. Since the program debuted last February, the company has added around 18,000 Airbnb Plus homes on the platform in more than 300 markets. The company also recently introduced a search setting on the site that would allow users to pre-filter options recommended for business travelers. Part of this push reflects the changing realities of the lodging and hotel space, says Jan Freitag, senior VP for lodging insights at STR, a global consultancy focused on the hospitality industry. This is sort of the convergence of all the different trends into one larger accommodations landscape," he says. "The border between hotels, rental by owner, hostels, and microhotels are all fluid. Depending on the night and who you are, you may stay in the same type of room, and it may be sold to you as a different experience each time." Airbnb's push to be all things to all travelers goes beyond just highlighting and upgrading existing inventory. Airbnb is also working with developers and companies like Lyric to expand available inventory, and recently invested in Luckey Homes, a French property management service (Paris is Airbnb's top city market). The startup has also been slowly growing its Powered by Airbnb initiative, which provides design advice to developers seeking to create purpose-built multifamily projects made for short-term rentals. In addition to a string of already-announced projects in Miami, Austin, and Nashville called Natiivo and Niido, the initiative also includes similar projects with a number of developers the company can't yet discuss. A project with RXR Realty is seeking to utilize space in commercial buildings to add additional inventory in cities with more stringent short-term rental regulations such as New York (where restrictions on short-term rentals don't apply to units in commercial buildings). "We may not have the units we need in the destinations we need, so we may as well build them ourselves," says Freitag of Airbnb's dip into the world of development. Airbnb's renewed focus on business travel, a sector predicted to reach $1.6 trillion in revenue globally by 2020, comes during a time when the concept of business travel is evolving. Airbnb research has found that, whether due to a new generation of workers seeking more personalization and convenience, an overall shift in lodging preference since the introduction of short-term rentals, or the difficulty of disconnecting from the digital world (or afford child care), the personal and professional are increasingly blurring. The corporate travel world is seeing more remote working, more group travel by teams who want to split a multi- room rental, and more workcations, when employees bookend their business trips with a few days of leisure travel. In addition, more parents have embraced the option of bringing their kids along for lengthy work trips. This has all meant that business travelers are increasingly searching for nontraditional rooms with extra space, kitchens, or amenities like pools to keeps kids occupied and entertained. That plays into Airbnb's strengths. Business corridors and travel corridors in cities are bluring, creating a need for additional rooms in busy tourist centers in cities across the country. "It's about finding where people want to travel overall and making sure there's supply there," says an Airbnb spokesperson. But that type of supply is serendipitously perfect for business travelers