Airbnb faces major blow amid coronavirus pandemic
Revenue of the San Francisco-based company will be ‘less than the half of the 2019 figure’
The “hard hit” American homesharing platform announced on Tuesday that it will slash a quarter of its work force — some 1,900 people all around the world.
“We are collectively living through the most harrowing crisis of our lifetime,” Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said in a blog post.
This year the San Francisco-based company’s revenue will be “less than the half” of the 2019 figure, and Chesky admits he doesn’t know when the tourists will return.
Still there are many who believe that holiday apartments, rather than hotels, have a future, as safe havens away from the crowds. Enrique Alcantara, president of Apartur, the holiday apartment owners’ federation in Barcelona, foresees a 85 percent drop in sales revenue for 2020.
He predicts though that holiday apartments “are going to adapt more easily to the new times that lie ahead, to the new needs of the tourists, mainly as far as security is concerned.”
In Athens too, despite the staggering drop in holiday reservations, there remains a glimmer of hope.
“Tourists will benefit from private apartments in order to feel more secure in comparison with hotels where they will have to interact with more people,” Stratos Paradias, president of the Greek Federation of Property Owners and of the International Union of Property Owners, told AFP.
He also thinks apartments that manage to stay in the short-term rental market will bounce back “faster than elsewhere” because “Greece is considered one of the safe countries thanks to the way it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.” In Barcelona, Sybille Campagne’s holiday letting calendar is empty. “For July-August, all reservations were canceled,” the 43-year-old French woman explains. Nevertheless she isn’t considering taking her apartment off the Airbnb platform because it accounts for 80 percent of all her reservations.
Juan Quilis, a 35-year-old telecom technician who owns an apartment in Seville, is also sticking with shortterm rentals for the time being.
“I’m not too worried for now, because I have a savings cushion, but if I see that things don’t come around, I will put my apartment in long term rental. As a last resort.”
Tourists will benefit from private apartments in order to feel more secure in comparison with hotels where they will have to interact with more people.
President of the Greek Federation of Property Owners