How To Build An App Like Airbnb In 2025: Complete Development Guide

In the age of digital-first applications such as Airbnb, a great revolution has taken place in the world of travel by allowing people to discover, stay, and experience things in various places around the world. Now looking ahead to 2025, the peer-to-peer rental demand continues to be on the rise with considerable opportunity for businesses and startups yet. 

If you’re looking to build an app like Airbnb, it will be important to understand their user needs, market trends, and how they were able to make use of different technologies to develop an application that generated a great amount of session data. Whether your goal is to create a vacation rental app, property-sharing app, or other niche booking application, this guide will provide a comprehensive resource throughout the entire development process, including identifying the essential features for your app, tech stack, estimated cost of app development, and monetization strategies. 

Find below the steps to thoroughly build, launch, and scale an application like Airbnb and gain insight into how to find success by standing out in an ever-competitive digital-first world that keeps changing in 2025. 

Overview Of Airbnb Success

Launched in 2008, Airbnb has changed the travel landscape worldwide. Starting out as an air mattress rental site in San Francisco, it now boasts over 7 million listing in more than 220 countries. The company's success stems from their ability to fill a gap in the travel market by connecting consumers with cost effective, unique accommodations at their travel destination and creating a trusted community through guest reviews, secure payment solutions, completed transactions, and overall guest experience. 

Airbnb has successfully disrupted the traditional hospitality model by creating a new line of business that allowed everyday people to be hosts. Airbnb faced obstacles, such as the pandemic and several hurdles that are regulatory, but the company adapted quickly with features such as "Airbnb Experiences" and the ability for consumers to check out a long-term stay. 

Regardless, these adaptations allowed Airbnb to rally and take firm control over the technology within the sharing economy, alongside its position of a technology leader within the travel-tech space.

Why Build an Airbnb-Like App In 2025?

The travel and hospitality industry is seeing a shift, transforming into a technology-driven landscape in 2025, making it a perfect landscape for an Airbnb-like app to launch. The following are some positive reasons why you must Create a property rental app:

1. Demand for Travel is on the Rise

Travel is increasingly returning to pre-pandemic levels, and COVID-19 recovery, increased disposable income, and pent up travel demand has induced consumers to visit both new intown and out-of-town destinations. Consumers are looking for the most cost-effective destinations and accommodations to arrive at their destination. These consumers are looking for a more flexible, customized, or personal experience to accommodate their budget, which traditional hotels and resorts fail to provide. This is why an Airbnb app development is fit to bridge the gap of demand. 

2. Remote Work and Digital Nomads

The global workforce has changed; remote work is pervasive and so transient - thinking about it, it is the new norm. Often, we see digital nomad and remote professionals constantly on the short term and traveling to different locations searching for good long-term stay options to temporarily call home. On-demand rental app development that supports flexibility, and fully furnished options with a safe, homely feeling won't find it difficult to tap into this growing and fast growing sector of remote workers. 

3. Niche Vacation Rentals

There are new and specialized vacation rentals posses more consumer interest the growing destinations for the buyer are pet-friendly homes, eco-lodges, rural escapes, and wellness escapes. A smart Airbnb replica can address these verticals to develop a unique and loyal user base that will have less competition. 

4. Potential for Higher Earnings for Hosts

Homeowners and investors are looking for ways to make money. Airbnb-like platforms give them the opportunity to rent out their properties as a source of income.  It also creates a scalable revenue model for the app owner through commission and subscription fees. 

5. Easy to Develop with Present Day Technology

The technology stacks, cloud infrastructure, AI, and payment gateways today make it easier and cheaper to launch feature-rich apps that are scalable, than ever before, it also allows for a better user experience and operating automation.

Growth Of Travel And Tourism In Australia

• In 2025, the travel & tourism sector in Australia is expected to contribute about USD 314.4 billion to the economy (~11.4% of GDP). This is up almost 30% from pre‑pandemic levels.  

• In 2024, the sector contributed about USD 297 billion and provided a boost to about 1.6 million jobs, the forecast for 2025 is to support 1.7 million jobs, over 11.5% of total employment which is a year‑on‑year increase of nearly 100,000 jobs. 

• International visitor spend in 2025 is forecast to reach over USD 39 billion, a ~22% increase from 2024.

• Domestic visitor expenditure is expected to rise to almost USD 173 billion, indicating robust local travel demand

• International visitation reached 7.7 million trips for the year ending March 2025. Of these, ~3.3 million trips were holiday travel (up 11%), ~2.6 million trips were for visits to friends/relatives, and ~772 thousand trips were for business and ~509 thousand for education

• Compared to March 2019 (pre‑COVID): trip numbers are at ~90%, nights spent are at ~10% higher, with total spend up ~19%

• The IMARC Group values the Australian travel and tourism market at USD 17.2 billion in 2024, and is expected to grow at a CAGR rate of 2.11% between 2025 and 2033, increasing to USD 21.1 billion by 2033.

• Another source estimates USD 15.5 billion in 2024 for the tourism market specifically, with a higher CAGR of 4.13%, increasing to USD 22.3 billion by 2033.

Key Features Of An App Like Airbnb

Making a successful airbnb app has many parts and requires various features to provide a great experience for guests and hosts alike. Here are 10 features that every vacation Online property rental marketplace should contain.

1. User Registration and Profile 

Users whether a guest or host should be able to register through email, phone, or social media and have a profile that has verification, profile pictures, and user information so they can establish trust.

2. Property Listings and Property Management 

The host must be able to create a property listing with a property title, description, list of amenities, price, an availability calendar, house rules, and property images. The host must be able to add, edit, and remove property information quickly and in real-time.

3. Advanced Search and Filters 

The guest must be able to find properties quickly using various filters such as destination, dates, price, room type, number of guests, amenities, and review ratings. The ability to show the location of the listings in tandem with maps is also important.

4. Booking System 

The Hotel booking app like Airbnb should have a real-time booking engine that will give users the ability to book instantly or send the host a reservation request. The booking system should ideally perform the calendar sync, identify availability, and check cancellation policy.

5. In-App Messaging 

In-app messaging will allow hosts and guests to exchange messages in a secure platform and gives both the guest and host a chance to communicate their needs and wants, clarify outstanding questions, and build transparency prior to booking.

6. Payment Integration

Having a secure, multi- currency payment gateway, that accepts Credit/Debit Cards, PayPal and wallets is essential. This Property listing mobile app will also need to safely process host payouts, commission cuts and refunds. 

7. Multi-Language & Multi-Currency Support

When developing an application in Australia, and if your target market is global or multi-industry, it is valuable to give users content in multiple languages, and also allow for them to pay you in multiple currencies. 

Step-By-Step Process To Build An App Like Airbnb

Now that time has come when you must know how to Build an app like Airbnb. Creating an app like Airbnb takes a systematic approach to focus on functionality and scalability while maintaining the users satisfaction level throughout. Below illustrates a simple and effective 5-step process to help enhance the development of your app.

1. Market Research & Planning

This phase in wcih primary you must hire Vacation rental app development company that should look into the travel & accommodation industry and analyse your target audience (guests & hosts), and competitors such as Airbnb, Vrbo and Booking.com. Understand the unique value your Property listing mobile app will provide, unique core features, revenue generating business model (e.g commission-based, terms of service, subscription), as well as any compliance requirements for your given industry - especially in Australia.
 

2. Design UI/UX

User experience is an important part of a Booking and reservation app like Airbnb, which is focused on connecting guests and hosts to each other. Use wireframes and interactive prototypes to create designs for both the guest and host interfaces. Ensure that the plan reflects a clean, intuitive, and mobile-first design that is responsive. Aesthetics are meaningful to this product as well as features like first search filters, calendar availability and booking process, user profile, user ratings and feedback. 

3. Build the Application (Frontend & Backend)

Your hired Travel app development services providers will take time to consider a solid tech stack (React Native/Flutter as mobile, Node.js/Django for backend). Build the key use cases or modules such as authentication services, property listings with essential filtering features, booking engine, chat messaging system and payment gateway (Stripe/PayPal). Host the backend services on the cloud (AWS or Google). In developing the product, develop it deliberately to use resources available to scale it.

4. Test and Deploy 

Test the Airbnb app development in multiple modes: functional testing (does it work as designed?), usability testing (how did the user interact with it?); performance testing (does it remain responsive with many users, lots of content, etc.); and security testing (is the data or profile protected?). Ensure that it is tested on all devices and platforms (iOS, Android, web). Make use of beta, the actual users at scale will teach the product owner and team the most. After hard work and scrutiny from testing, progress forward to deploying the Booking and reservation app to the App Store, Google Play and web servers.

5. Post-Launch Support and Scaling

After launching the app and confirming your users have successful onboarding, usability on the service, and addressing customer support interactions, note your feedback. The hired Mobile App Development Company will track the performance using analytics. Start planning/filling your pipeline for the next iterations of the application and note AI-based interaction suggestions, loyalty and rewards programs and adapting for fading markets using multilingual based services as examples. Invest in growth through influencer marketing and partnerships. You'll want to advertise to grow your host and guest community. 

Cost To Develop An App Like Airbnb In Australia (2025)

In 2025, an Airbnb app development cost varies from AUD 10,000 to AUD 30,000. There are many factors included in the cost, including complexity of build, desired features, location of the Airbnb app development company Australia, etc. To determine a cost range, we will consider bare bones, a mid-level app, and a full-featured app.

A bare bones app could have user registration, listing management, an integrated booking engine, and a payment gateway, which we estimate to be in the range of AUD 20,000 to 45,000.

A mid-level Airbnb app development could also have chat support, listing and host dashboards, advanced filters, reviews, maps, and push notifications. For an app with this kind of feature set, we would estimate a Airbnb clone app cost calculator of AUD 20,000 to 50,000+.

A full-featured app could have all of the above features with AI-based recommendations, multilingual support, loyalty programs, offline sync capabilities, and an admin panel. Total cost to Develop app like Airbnb in 2025 range of AUD 50,000+.  If you need to work on the app with an Real estate mobile app development company, you may increase your budget but have a safer bet for compliance and local presence if support is needed. On the other hand, there are many quality offshore teams that may help reduce upfront costs but you may need to manage the project closely along the way.

Why Choose IMG Global Infotech For Airbnb Clone App Development In Australia?

IMG Global Infotech is proud to be a trusted development partner for the creation of Airbnb clone apps in Australia with expertise to produce scalable, secure, and user-friendly app and website solutions. Using strong industry insights and a unique group of developers, we build solutions that are tailored to Australian market requirements, including all relevant local compliance and a seamless user experience (UX).  

Hire Airbnb app developers Australia that offer services that include everything from strategy, design, development, testing, and support, which is everything you need to get to market quickly and stay ahead of your competitors. We are all about innovation, cost-effective solutions, and ensuring clients are set up for success in the long term, which is why we are always the best option for you to create your next generation rental marketplace app. 

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Final Thoughts

Launching an application like Airbnb will be a very cost-effective way to enter into the growing travel and rentals market in 2025. There are many opportunities available in this rapidly growing market due to the increase of travelers creating new hotel and accommodation expectations, the remote-work culture, and travelers seeking personalized stays. Now is the right time to get started on launching your feature-rich and scalable Vacation rental app development , especially by the time 2025 arrives.