Airbnb Inc. said Thursday about 15,000 tourists visited PyeongChang and its adjacent cities via the global room-sharing platform during the 2018 Winter Olympics, which wrapped up last week.

The number of travelers who made reservations in Gangwon Province, including the Olympic host town of PyeongChang, some 180 kilometers east of Seoul, during the 17-day international sports event jumped 500 percent on-year, according to Airbnb.

The company said the figure is equivalent to 7,500 hotel rooms, or 46 average-sized hotels, operating at full capacity based on double occupancy.

Of the total, some 6,600, or 44 percent, were foreign visitors and 500 of the 1,800 accommodations which hosted guests during the period were first-time booked listings, Airbnb said.

"A lot of Airbnb hosts in Gangwon opened their homes to travelers for the first time during the Olympics," Lee Sang-hyun, the company's head of public policy for Korea, said in a press release. "Airbnb helps local residents and cities to expand their offering and make better use of the resources they already have."

Airbnb signed an agreement with the organizing committee for the Olympics in November last year to offer accommodation options for travelers visiting the Gangwon region during the quadrennial games.(Yonhap)