Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
Airbnb and the future of travel
Three months ago, Airbnb co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky was working on the company’s initial public offering and planning a spring vacation.
But the coronavirus upended global travel — and all his plans.
“My world’s gotten really small,” Chesky said from his home in San Francisco.
Airbnb expects its revenue will be cut in half this year. Chesky recently laid off 25% of Airbnb’s staff and suspended projects not directly related to home-sharing.
Still, he’s optimistic. Airbnb has more listings now — over 7 million — than it did at the beginning of the year. And he thinks people will yearn to travel after the pandemic.
The Associated Press spoke with Chesky about Airbnb and the future of travel.
What will travel look like when it returns?
I do think it’s going to take time. I think people are not going to get on an airplane for a while. Travel is going to resume by car, and the really big trend is going to be people traveling near them. For example, 13% of our business pre-COVID was people traveling and staying at Airbnbs 50 miles from them. Now that’s 30%. So travel will become more last minute, more affordable, more nearby.
What do Airbnb’s bookings look like right now? Is there any point in the future where things start to look like they did before?
Yes. So trips less than a week away and more than six months from now are really popular. There’s a lot of growth around near-term and very long term. It’s the medium term that is way down.
Airbnb has paused projects not directly related to sharing homes and experiences. Is that a permanent change?
I really want Airbnb to use this crisis to sharpen our focus, to get back to basics, back to the core of everyday hosts that offer homes and experiences. And I think the people who really yearn for that are going to want to stay in places that are really authentic and personal. We’re going to put in as many or more resources than before. It’s just going to come at the expense of not doing as many things. Transportation, for example, is on pause. I certainly don’t expect in the next year or year and a half to be working on it. One day? Very, very possible.
You set aside $250 million to compensate hosts for some of the business they have lost. Will you have to do more?
The number one thing we can do is do everything we can to help them get more bookings and adapt their business to new types of demand, because that would be in the order of billions and billions of dollars.
Is the IPO still happening this year?
We’re ready to go public when the markets are ready for us. No news to announce.