Airbnb To Bring Festival of Hosting to Los Angeles

Ashton Kutcher, Gwyneth Paltrow, Elizabeth Gilbert, Brian Grazer and many more lined up to speak at the three day festival that aims to reimagine the future of travel and hospitality

SAN FRANCISCO, July 12, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Airbnb, the world's leading community-driven hospitality company, today reveals how its annual community gathering, the Airbnb Open, will be transformed this year into a festival of hosting. The third Airbnb Open will take place in downtown Los Angeles in November and combine visionary talks and company updates with music, art and food, celebrating the very best of this eclectic and resurgent city.

Last year, Airbnb welcomed over 5,000 hosts from 110 countries to Paris, France where we also announced we would host Airbnb Open 2016 in Los Angeles. This year, Airbnb plans to expand the scope of the Airbnb Open, welcoming both hosts and guests from its community as well as local Angelenos and others to explore the future of travel and hospitality.

The annual Airbnb Open is an opportunity for Airbnb's community to gather in one place and for hosts in particular to make meaningful connections with each other and learn tips for successful hosting, as well as hearing the latest news from the company, with important product updates.

Visionary and informative keynotes will again lie at the heart of this year's event with confirmed speakers including Gwyneth Paltrow (Academy Award Winning Actress and Founder of goop), Brian Grazer (Academy Award and Emmy Award winning Producer, New York Times Bestselling Author), Ashton Kutcher (actor/investor), Elizabeth Gilbert (Bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and Big Magic), Blake Mycoskie (Chief Shoe Giver/Founder TOMS), and Danny Meyer (Union Square Hospitality Group CEO, Shake Shack Founder, Bestselling Author), as well as Airbnb's founders, executives and more than 30 host and guest educators from the community.

Art, music, food and support for small businesses, makers and artisans will be a focal point of this year's Airbnb Open with presenting partner American Express curating the Airbnb Open Spotlight: Los Angeles. This showcase, with tickets also made available for the general public to purchase, will act as a closing celebration for Airbnb Open, featuring headlining musical talent, a Shop Small® Market and special guests to be announced in the coming months.

"This year's Airbnb Open will be a seminal moment for our community as we announce our vision for the future of hosting and travel," said Airbnb Co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky. "As the first ever global festival of hosting, the Open will bring together hosts and guests from across the globe in one of the most creative places in the world, Los Angeles. The city will be an open canvas for them to explore for three days of education, connection and celebration."

This year's Airbnb Open will highlight the thriving downtown area of LA, taking place across four historic theatres and involving many local restaurants, cafes and other small businesses. Attendees will have the chance to engage with locals and a diverse range of communities, immersing themselves in the energy of the city and experiencing what it would be like to live there.

The Airbnb Open takes place from November 17-19 in Los Angeles. Early bird ticket registration opens today. For more information, visit www.airbnb.com/open

About Airbnb
Founded in August of 2008 and based in San Francisco, California, Airbnb is a trusted community marketplace for people to list, discover, and book unique accommodations around the world — online or from a mobile phone or tablet. Whether an apartment for a night, a castle for a week, or a villa for a month, Airbnb connects people to unique travel experiences, at any price point, in more than 34,000 cities and 191 countries. And with world-class customer service and a growing community of users, Airbnb is the easiest way for people to monetize their extra space and showcase it to an audience of millions.

About American Express
American Express is a global services company, providing customers with access to products, insights and experiences that enrich lives and build business success. Learn more at americanexpress.com and connect with us on facebook.com/americanexpress,foursquare.com/americanexpress, linkedin.com/company/american-express, twitter.com/americanexpress, and youtube.com/americanexpress. Key links to products, services and corporate responsibility information: charge and credit cards, business credit cards, Plenti rewards program, travel services, gift cards, prepaid cards, merchant services, corporate card, business travel and corporate responsibility.

Celebrity speaker Biographies
Gwyneth Paltrow
Gwyneth Paltrow is one of today's most prolific and celebrated actors in both television and film. A testament to her undeniable talent, Paltrow's role in Shakespeare in Love catapulted her into awards stardom with Best Actress honors at the Golden Globes, Screen Actors Guild Awards, and Academy Awards. In 2011, she was honored with an Emmy Award for Guest Actress in a Comedy Series for her role as substitute teacher Holly Holiday on Fox's smash-hit musical series Glee.  She first established her credibility in the culinary field when she co-wrote Spain, A Culinary Road Trip with acclaimed chef Mario Batali. Paltrow has published cook books New York Best Sellers, It's All Good, My Father's Daughter, and 2016's, It's All Easy. Additionally, Paltrow continues to develop the newsletter and an ultimate lifestyle resource, goop. 

Brian Grazer
Academy Award® and Emmy® award-winning producer, and New York Times Bestselling author Brian Grazer has been making movies and television programs for over 30 years. Grazer's productions have been nominated for 43 Oscars® and 158 Emmys. Grazer has been personally nominated for four Academy Awards®, and in 2002 he won the Best Picture Oscar® for A Beautiful Mind. Other film credits include American Gangster, 8 Mile, Apollo 13, Parenthood, and Splash. Grazer's television credits include critic and fan favorites Empire, 24, Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights and the 84th Annual Academy Awards. Grazer's book A Curious Mind: The Secret to a Bigger Life spent 4 weeks on the NY Times bestseller list.

Grazer's upcoming films include Inferno, the third installment of Dan Brown's Robert Langdon franchise and The Dark Tower based on Stephen King's bestselling series. Upcoming TV projects include the 3rd season of Empire, Shots Fired, 24: Legacy, all for Fox; as well Mars and Genius, for NatGeo.

Ashton Kutcher
Ashton is an actor, entrepreneur, tech investor, producer and philanthropist focused on using technology to effect positive changes in the world. Kutcher co-founded the venture funds A-Grade Investments and Sound Ventures, investing in multiple tech companies including Airbnb, Spotify, Handy and ClassPass. In 2010 TIME Magazine named him among their Top 100 Most Influential People. The following year, Vanity Fair honored him in their 2011 New Establishment List, which identifies the top 50 new visionaries, engineering prodigies and entrepreneurs. Kutcher was named one of Forbes magazine's "World's Most Powerful Celebrities," as well as one of Fast Company magazine's "Most Creative People" In 2010 and 2014. Kutcher is the co-founder of Thorn: Digital Defenders of Children, and currently stars in the Netflix Original Series, The Ranch.

Elizabeth Gilbert
Best known for her 2006 runaway bestseller Eat, Pray, Love, Elizabeth Gilbert is unquestionably one of her generation's most beloved memoirists. Eat, Pray, Love, which has sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, is Gilbert's memoir of soul-searching and international exploration in the wake of her devastating divorce. The mini-series rights for Gilbert's bestselling novel The Signature of All Things was optioned by PBS's Masterpiece. It is a sweeping story of botany, exploration and desire, spanning across much of the 19th century. It was lauded by O Magazine as "the novel of a lifetime" and named as one of the Best Books of 2013 by the New York Times, O Magazine, NPR, and Time Magazine. Her latest bestseller is, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, a brilliant nonfiction treatise on creativity. She is currently at work on a new novel and is a columnist for O Magazine.

Blake Mycoskie
Blake Mycoskie is founder/chief shoe giver at Toms and the catalyst behind the One for One movement. Toms has given more than 60 million pairs of new shoes to children in need since 2006. Toms Eyewear has helped restore clear sight to more than 400,000 people in need since its launch in 2011, and Toms Roasting Co. has helped provide more than 335,000 weeks of safe water to communities in need and Tom's has supported safe birth services for 25,000 women. While traveling in Argentina in 2006, Mycoskie witnessed the hardships faced by children growing up without shoes. His solution: Create a for-profit business that is sustainable & not reliant on donations. Mycoskie's vision became the One for One business model.

Danny Meyer
Danny Meyer is the CEO of Union Square Hospitality Group and the founder of Shake Shack. USHG includes Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern, Blue Smoke, Jazz Standard, The Modern, Maialino, Untitled, North End Grill, Marta, Porchlight, Union Square Events, and Hospitality Quotient. Danny, his restaurants and chefs have earned an unprecedented 28 James Beard Awards, and in 2015, Danny was named to the TIME 100 list of the Most Influential People in the World. Danny's first business book, Setting the Table (HarperCollins, 2006), a New York Times bestseller, examines the power of hospitality in restaurants, business and life. An active national leader in the fight against hunger, Danny serves on the board of Share Our Strength and has long supported hunger relief initiatives including City Harvest and God's Love We Deliver.

SOURCE Airbnb

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