Airbnb founders: Joe Gebbia, Nathan Blecharczyk and Brian Chesky
Airbnb was formed at the twilight of the last major economic crisis in 2008. Over the years, the small company that rents people’s homes has become one of the world’s most valuable startups, culminating in a success story this year. However, the global coronavirus pandemic and the associated cessation of tourism have significantly changed these plans.
“We spent twelve years building the Airbnb business, and we lost almost all of it in four to six weeks.” described in brief Brian Chesky, co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, for the portal CNBC.
The company had to react to the situation immediately, so for example, it completely stopped all its marketing activities, thus saving a billion dollars. In April, Airbnb withdrew the same amount from investors and borrowed another billion a few days later.
The redundancies or reductions in the salaries of their founders have not escaped, and thanks to a set of similar measures, they have created a sufficient cushion to protect it from the crisis. At least, according to Chesky, this strategy worked.
Airbnb co-founder, CEO and community chief Brian Chesky
“Currently, we do absolutely no marketing and it turns out that our business is perhaps more efficient and profitable than we originally thought.” says the head of the company and refers to statistics – Airbnb currently registers more hosts than before the start of the pandemic, while at the turn of May and June the company recorded the same number of reservation requests as at the same time last year.
Airbnb is also succeeding in fulfilling the goal of diversifying the services provided, within which it wants to focus more on arranging medium-term or longer-term accommodation. In recent weeks, it has already accounted for 20 percent of all bookings for more than thirty days.
“We significantly reduced our costs because we did not know how long this storm would last. We hope for the best, but we are preparing for the worst. Therefore, even if the city closures are repeated, thanks to the changes we have made, we will be fine. ” believes Chesky.
As in the interview for CNBC he added, Airbnb’s admission to the stock exchange during this year does not rule out or commit to it. Since the beginning of the crisis, the company has focused on other activities and will only request a public subscription for events after a stronger recovery in tourism. This may happen relatively soon, although it will probably be a little different than we have known it so far.
Keychain with Airbnb logo
“Travel as we know it is over. This does not mean that it is completely finished, it will only be different and will not return to its original form. Nobody knows what it will look like. ” says Chesky and immediately adds his own vision – there will be a greater variety of destinations on the market where people travel.
Instead of all tourists heading to the same cities or huge tourist areas thousands of miles away, people will prefer local experiences and get to know local communities. “Tourism is recovering, people want to travel. It will only take longer than we originally thought, “ adds Chesky.
Oliver Dlouhý, the founder and head of the Czech Kiwi.com, for example, is relatively optimistic about what travel will look like in the future. In an interview with CzechCrunch at the end of April, he predicted that the golden age of air transport was yet to come – paradoxically due to the crash of many airlines leaving unused planes, which would also reduce their rental prices for new companies.
