Key Takeaways
- Airbnb led a $58 million Series C in WeRoad, acquiring a 10% stake and a board seat in the Milan-based group travel platform.
- WeRoad’s CEO Andrea D’Amico, a Booking.com hotel veteran of 18 years, is now Airbnb’s VP of Hotels — a clear signal of serious hotel ambitions.
- STR operators should watch how Airbnb’s push into hotels, group tours, and in-destination experiences reshapes guest discovery and booking flow on the platform.
Airbnb just wrote a $58 million check to a European group-travel startup and handed its CEO a new job — both on the same day.
The move, structured as a Series C round led by Airbnb in Milan-based WeRoad, gives Airbnb a 10 percent stake and a board seat in a platform that has taken more than 300,000 travelers on curated group trips across thousands of itineraries worldwide.
The personnel piece is just as revealing as the money.
According to a TechCrunch report, WeRoad CEO Andrea D’Amico, who spent 18 years running hotel partnerships for Booking.com across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa before joining WeRoad in 2022, is relocating to San Francisco to lead Airbnb’s hotels division.
Airbnb’s newsest executive replaces Jesse Stein, who moves to Airbnb for Real Estate, while Ron Sandel, director of hotels, departs entirely.
D’Amico will remain on WeRoad’s board.
Related: Airbnb adds car rentals and AI booking tools
Airbnb’s hotel ambitions have been building for months, and this hire is the clearest sign yet the company intends to compete seriously in that category.
The platform giant has historically grown its Experiences business organically.
