The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Travel
Airbnb bounces back
As with so many other travel companies, the coronavirus pandemic has been hard on Airbnb, with national lockdowns and travel bans combining to bring business to a dead stop. But things are starting to look up for the holiday rental firm, which has experienced something of a mini boom in the past few months.
The turnaround in fortunes came as countries started to relax travel restrictions at the end of spring, when a flood of cooped-up city dwellers was in search of quiet and self-contained countryside retreats – a situation which Airbnb, with its thousands of rural listings, was well positioned to take advantage of.
Now, with the rest of the travel industry pleading for financial aid, Airbnb has posted profits of £219 million for the third quarter of 2020, and is in a strong enough position that it is preparing to become a public company in the near future.
It’s a far cry from six months ago, when its executives were compelled to axe 25 per cent of staff – almost 2,000 people – and put in applications for
emergency loans amounting to $2 billion (£1.5 billion) in a bid to survive.
In the UK, Airbnb bookings have taken another hit thanks to the second lockdown, with the company now suspending all reservations until Dec 2. And far fewer people will be eyeing a break in December or January than in the summer, especially if some restrictions on mixing households remain in place over Christmas.
Hoteliers are predicting their struggles will continue far beyond 2021, a view backed up by PricewaterhouseCoopers. The accounting firm has estimated that it will take four years before hotels once again achieve 2019’s levels of occupancy.
Like other hospitality businesses, Airbnb has strict hygiene protocols in place to curb the spread of Covid-19, but since it is a listings site, and does not own the properties itself, the responsibility for maintaining these standards falls on the hosts, as do the costs.
Nor does it have to contend with managing social distancing and gueststaff interactions, two issues that are forcing many hotels to reduce capacity at a time when maximum bookings are most vital.
The recent stream of good news stories over the prospect of a vaccine has prompted a spike in interest for travel in 2021. Some travel sites have seen search numbers increase by more than 200pc. But if and when travel does restart next year, it looks like Airbnb will be the first to reap the rewards.