HEAVILY FEATHERED NEST EGG
Airbnb’s recent IPO helps it weather heavy losses, but some of its hosts are still desperate for relief.
US-based Airbnb has weathered the Covid-19 pandemic with heavy losses, however its recent gangbuster initial public offering (IPO) has left it in a healthy financial position for 2021.
The company’s shares have skyrocketed from the US$68 IPO price in December last year to almost $200 currently, with a market capitalisation of $114 billion.
Investors are flocking to Airbnb based on optimism global travel will begin to recover this year, despite the firm’s almost $4 billion in losses in the fourth quarter last year.
Its hosts, on the other hand, are still struggling, especially in Thailand where 90% of bookings came from interna- tional travellers and have mostly dried up, with domestic travel unable to offset the dip.
According to a survey by Airbnb, the majority of Thais plan to spend only 5,000 to 15,000 baht on travel this year, compared with 6,400 baht per day for the average Chinese tourist based on figures from the Tourism Authority of Thailand.
The company declined to disclose how much money has been doled out in Thailand from its $10-million “Superhost Relief Fund” or its $250-million cancellation fund, which claimed to pay back 25% of hosts’ losses after the company gave free refunds for cancellations at the beginning of the pandemic from mid-March to May 2020.
“We can’t get into specific numbers, but the host community is an important stakeholder for us and there are a number of relief programmes we implemented,” said Amanpreet Bajaj, general manager for Southeast Asia at Airbnb.
“With the kind of restrictions that have been put in place the entire travel community has been affected, and right now our priority is focusing on how all stakeholders can work together towards the gradual reopening of travel.”
However, hosts worldwide have complained on social media of paltry payments by the company through their relief funds, some as low as $2, and rarely amounting to a full 25% of cancellations.
Airbnb, like most “sharing economy” companies, rely on individual entrepreneurs for its income, taking a cut of their profits, while leaving them exposed to losses.
The company laid off 25% of its full-time staff last year to control its own corporate losses, but many of its hosts relied on income from listings from Airbnb.
The company implemented strict Covid-19 sanitary rules for its hosts at their own expense and will bar them from the platform if a guest reports them.
Many hosts also skirt Thai law by renting out private residences for under 30-day periods without a hotel licence. This gives Airbnb a competitive advantage over hotels that have to comply with the regulation, but leaves its hosts footing the bill for any legal repercussions.
Because of their legal status, Airbnb hosts were not eligible for any of the Thai government subsidy programmes such as “We Travel Together” that offered incentives to guests.
Vittavas Pra, an Airbnb host based in Bangkok, said Airbnb only paid him $20 in relief from cancellations.
He relied on Chinese tourists for many of his listings, and they began cancelling in February 2020 after the lockdown in Wuhan, but the Airbnb relief programme only started in mid-March.
“Some 90% of my reservations are Chinese guests and it wasn’t until around February 2020 that the Chinese government decided to shut down Wuhan,” Mr Vittavas said.
“The shutdown triggered all the Chinese guests to cancel reservations, then in March 2020, the World Health Organization announced that Covid-19 is a worldwide pandemic and Airbnb’s policy for relief funds only applies to guest cancellations based on the date of the WHO announcement.”
Because he lists more than two properties, Mr Vittavas said he was ineligible for that relief scheme.
However, Woody Pahuwuttanakorn, an Airbnb “Superhost” who both lists his own property and acts as a consultant for others on how to list their properties online through his company Hostmaker, is happy with the response by Airbnb.
He received around 30,000 baht from the fund and 25% back from cancellations between March and May last year.
“If you compare it with Agoda and Booking.com, Airbnb is definitely the better choice,” said Mr Woody.
“They are the only company that provided solutions in terms of their cancellation policy and any relief money.”
While his occupancy rate and prices have both dropped by 50%, some of his listings are actually doing better than before the pandemic.
“Hua Hin and Kanchanaburi have both picked up since 2019, I think because it is an easy weekend trip for people from Bangkok who do not have time to travel too far,” Mr Woody said.
“But Bangkok itself and other places like Phuket and Chiang Mai are down a lot in bookings.”