Airbnb has launched a major update to its mobile web user experience in the hopes of encouraging more people to access the site user their smartphones.

The redesign moves the website to a more responsive design better suited to a variety of mobile screens, with a more attractive and usable layout. While the company has apps for Android and iOS, the new website is aimed at attracting new users to its marketplace.

To do this, it has focused on presenting a clean, attractive homepage, scrapping its search function in favour of more attractive, full-bleed images that invite users to browse listings and highlight potential destinations.

Currently, around 20 per cent of the companys web traffic comes from mobile devices, but that figure will no doubt increase. Travel is one of the primary sectors where people are becoming comfortable browsing and purchasing via mobile, and Airbnb are no doubt keen to take advantage of that fact.

Still, at the moment, Airbnbs conversion rate for mobile web is behind both its desktop and apps, so the redesign will also aim to increase bookings made through the site, updating its search function to be more intuitive and improving the layout of the listing pages to place a focus on images and making sure the Request to Book prompt stays fixed at the bottom of the page.