From partnering with Tesla to provide charging points for electric cars, to working with Bear Grylls and Disney to promote Jungle Book-style places to stay, the accommodation provider continues to evolve at break-neck speed.

But two of its more recent experiments would seem to have particular potential to change the game.

Earlier this year, it trialed a tours concept, whereby selected “City Hosts” act as local tour guides, offering their guests exclusive experiences: immersion in Tokyo’s art scene with a respected art collector, for example, or cycling through the city with an urban athlete. Nor were these solely day-trips, but sometimes itineraries spanning several days.

If selling excursions in this way arguably makes Airbnb a DMC of sorts, then its recent partnership with German airline Lufthansa surely stretches the Airbnb model beyond recognition.

For the last three weeks Airbnb has been selling Premium Economy seats from Frankfurt to New York, with payments processed on the Airbnb site, via the Lufthansa call centre. And with both parties telling us this week that the campaign was a success, I expect other airlines could now look at Airbnb as a new channel of distribution.

With an inventory larger than any hotel chain in the world, the all-important question, of course, is whether the next step for Airbnb could be to sell flights and accommodation packaged together.

Industry figures tell us they certainly consider this a possibility, and express concern about the legislative implications. With a business with a  UK-registered business, Airbnb would presumably be subject to Package Travel Regulations, and yet the company has thus far proven rather effective in operating outside regulatory constraints.

Hoteliers have ranted for some time that Airbnb hosts are allowed to provide accommodation without conforming to the costly regulations, safety checks and taxation that hotels and B&Bs do.

If Airbnb was to try selling packages in the UK market, without a significant change to its current “portal” model, I don’t imagine regulation-abiding agents and operators will stand still in challenging it.