Telco partners with home-rental site

CEBU, Philippines – The partnership of Philippine Long Distance and Telephone Co. and California-based online home-rental site Airbnb seeks to get more private homes and unique hospitality enterprises in Cebu to list on the online platform.

PLDT partnered with Airbnb to provide broadband services to private accommodations listing on the latter's site.

Katherine Jose, product specialist at PLDT Home, said yesterday that private property owners from Cebu listing on Airbnb are increasing.

Jose noted that Cebu is a priority area for tourists.

Airbnb hopes to grow its users and postings for available accommodations in the Philippines.

Jose said there are roughly 9,000 listings from the Philippines on Airbnb.

Unique accommodations that list on the online rental marketplace include tree houses, holiday villas and designer apartments.

Tourists consider reliable Internet connection as one of the important things when traveling.

Jose said the telecommunications firm continues to beef up its digital infrastructure nationwide to improve connectivity.

"We're rolling out fiber facilities and putting up LTE sites," Jose said when asked to comment about customer complaints involving disrupted and slow Internet connections.

Reports earlier said that aside from Airbnb, PLDT was also looking to acquire three more online platforms that would diversify its portfolio of digital initiatives.

The listed telco giant has invested in online firms under Rocket Internet such as Zalora, Lazada and Foodpanda and Malaysian Internet television provider iflix.

PLDT has one of the most valuable stocks in the stock exchange. (FREEMAN)