Not an employee but overall I am quite bullish on Airbnb as ironically they will be the definition of a what a post-covid travel company will become. Couple points in their favour:
1. Work from home becomes work from anywhere: The WFH trend is here to stay and will grow. If you have an option why not stay anywhere in world and work vs. close by home? I expect we will see a big % of WFH markets be global travelers. Proving this thesis would be Airbnb can show on S1 the % of guest who book outside their home location and for stays more then 2 weeks (to account that it is not simply vacation time).
2. Stays gravitating to Tier 2 or lower vs. Tier 1: People will not want to fly or be close to other folks so you will see travel go to Tier 2 or lower cities. This helps Airbnb in two ways.. less competition as these cities won't have as much hotels...second allows them to increase their breadth of revenue based across many more cities then being dependant on just Tier 1 which have risk (regulation, disaster, etc.). Show this on S1 by % of travel that is now on Tier 2 and lower markets and how this has grown as a proportion of your overall revenue base.
3. Safety: Simple it's getting close to accepted that the #1 way of covid transmission is via airborne. Based on this you as a traveler should want to minimize as much unnecessary humans interaction as possible thus hotels suck with all the traffic that is there. You may argue that hotels have policy that are more strict on cleaning but this doesn't mean much when the way to catch covid is via airseol.
4. Inventory: With the economy still in shambles they will get more host who will monetize their living assets more and thus provide more inventory.
> If you have an option why not stay anywhere in world and work vs. close by home? I expect we will see a big % of WFH markets be global travelers.
Well, if a business is allowing their employees to work from home due to COVID, they don't want them traveling off abroad and being classified as tax residents of various countries.
If people are moving to cheaper cities or locations in their own country, getting a long term Airbnb isn't very practical. Most will use whatever real estate listing website or service that is prevalent in their region.
FWIW in most countries you dont become tax resident until you've been there more than 3 months, in some cases 6.
source: I work(ed) for an international company and missions were somewhat commonplace, you get paid from your subsidiary unless you're there for longer than 3mo.
Working for a foreign company that's paying you in a different country is a grey area. Many countries have business visas that allow "business" but prohibit "work", with the main (but not sole) determinant being whether you're paid locally.
>Well, if a business is allowing their employees to work from home due to COVID, they don't want them traveling off abroad and being classified as tax residents of various countries.
You would need to stay somewhere 6+ months in a year to be classified as a tax resident so I don't see that being relevant to Airbnb.
1-3 month work from different places would be what I would be doing right now if my wife wasn't pregnant, but as someone who did it when the lockdown started (moved from inland to island for 2 weeks) the cut they take on that duration makes it worth searching local advertising sites. The bigger issue is that most rentals suck for work compared to a decent home office set-up
I didn't know this was a thing until my friend said he stayed in a guest room of a small country's embassy in SF that the host probably never had permission to rent out.
Had this very experience happen to me a few years back. Took a cab to the advertised address. Door locked. So I call the host and the host gives us a different address.
Catch a taxi to the other address and report it to Airbnb along with a request for cab refund (Airbnb just ignored the request). Host just started listing in a different address afterwards.
Uber and AirBnB have revealed that the Western World is far more lawless than we had imagined.
Who knew you could just 'start running cabs'.
Even city hall says 'no' ... they just keep going.
It's really bizarre.
Irrespective of whether or now we should allow AirBnB and Uber it's crazy that civic institutions seem to have no control.
If I was mayor and we decided 'no' on Uber I would be fining Uber millions and individual drivers a lot and ask regular cabs and cops to be on the lookout.
It's mind blowing how much tax revenue is being missed out on, and how much money is flying out of the country.
City Hall says 'no' and then they get a barrage of letters and emails demanding they don't hurt Uber or Airbnb as people love them. City Council doesn't want to have the deal with the fight, so they capitulate.
> If I was mayor and we decided 'no' on Uber I would be fining Uber millions and individual drivers a lot and ask regular cabs and cops to be on the lookout.
Are you prepared to deal with angry petitions and unhappy city councillors? Would you really be willing to put up the fight? Especially when there is virtually nobody in support of taxis and hotels?
And in eastern cities, someone picks a pocket. So that illegality means an equal amount of lawlessness there as here, right? Because all lawbreaking is equal, right?
(You may have a point about montreal, could you post some links to the laws against uber and Abnb)
if you were mayor in a city like LA you wouldn't have the ability to do anything really unless you had the council on your side, some of whom are currently being charged by the FBI in a corruption probe. Chicago is even worse. Most city governments are completely hobbled by design, powerless, and corrupted.
The defining feature of a cab is that you can hail one down on the street. If you summon one through an app, it’s a car service, it a cab, and car services have never been subject to the same regulations as cabs.
The real reason mayors don’t crack down on Ubers is that their constituents love them and any mayor that tried to outright ban them would become very unpopular very quickly. Welcome to living in a democracy.
Airbnbs are somewhat more tenuous politically because the people who use them are from out of town and don’t vote in local elections.
> Their biggest risk is regulatory and taxation. Many AirBnBs are illegal, and what will really grind government to act are the potential lost revenues
And if they are legal, they tend to be a bit boring.
When I look at some cities, agencies rent out tons of flat commercially. In In Porto I found over 100+ flats managed by one agency, they were dominating the list.
airbnb is not so interesting anymore when the flats look all the same worldwide, you never see the actual owner and the person checking you in has no real connection with the apartment and can't help you with issues too much.
We’re certainly not going to control it in the US with anything short of a vaccine. And that’s an extremely aggressive timeline even assuming that long term protective immunity is possible, that one of the current vaccine candidates is safe and effective, that we can make enough of it, and that people will take it.
Thriving business model while the slow cooker of regulations don't catch up to them.
There are reports of some touristic cities starting to cap Airbnb rentals, or just outright outlawing them. It's for good measure, Airbnbs in Barcelona, Lisboa and a number of other European cities have priced out the local population, investors buying 4-10 apartments on the same house to rent out as short-term rentals.
Airbnb created a pressure in the housing market that didn't exist before, for cities that already suffered with housing it really really sucks.
So it's the same as Uber: get into a regulatory grey area, capture the market and then fight over so regulations don't catch up with you. The whole business model of Airbnb was based on avoiding regulations, landlords have used this to prop up their short-term profits as it's much more profitable to rent out an Airbnb in Barcelona for 7-10 days per season-month than renting it out long-term monthly throughout the year.
Can't say for Lisboa, but in Algarve, half of those AL numbers aren't the actual owners. AL numbers actually work with residents/landlords and they rent the place, but it isn't owned by them, and give a cut to the owners.
(Know a few friends that would bunch up together in a house for July/August as 'entrepreneurs' would offer them 1-2K for their house for those two months to manage it and rent it themselves in AirBnB and other platforms)
Illegal taxis and rental housing (whether short or long term) have been around forever though. And they weren't just a fringe thing. College students and immigrant groups may predominantly use them in many places. If there's a current increase in such things, I'd blame it on the factors and regulations restricting the legal supply of these things rather than on airbnb/uber.
Illegal child pornography, terrorism radicalisation and other modern issues have also been around forever, it doesn't mean that the scale and leverage of the internet haven't made it worse, at least in tooling.
The same applies to illegal taxis and housing, yes, they were problems before but you didn't have a centralised global network of rentals (many illegal) connecting to the market of people looking for accommodation. The scale is the problem here.
> Illegal child pornography, terrorism radicalisation and other modern issues have also been around forever, it doesn't mean that the scale and leverage of the internet haven't made it worse, at least in tooling.
Ergo I can't disprove causation with my argument? I certainly concede that. For one thing it's a negative, not to mention the fact that you can't prove causation either. But then I don't concede it should be assumed true unless proven otherwise. Further, I can make arguments against it of course. And I made not one, but three: that it existed already, it was not a fringe activity (like, say, terrorism or child porn), and three that effects blamed on uber/airbnb can be explained by larger cultural changes. I think there's a bias in these arguments towards the experience of a certain group of people who actually travel the world and use apps to do so.
> If there's a current increase in such things, I'd blame it on the factors and regulations restricting the legal supply of these things rather than on airbnb/uber.
Curious, do you live in a city that's affected by this? I live in Edinburgh, and it's a massive problem here, almost entirely due to AirBnb. It's widely reported on pretty much every news source in the UK that the cause of this issue is Airbnb's (and other short term holiday lets), in a massive number of cases operating illegally (last number I saw was that <100 of the 7000+ lets in the 100sq miles of Edinburgh were legally registered)
One reason why I might gravitate towards Airbnb over a bigger hotel is that atleast in my country, larger hotels have central air conditioning, while Airbnbs usually don't. This makes them far safer as far as Covid transmission is concerned
counterpoint: your larger hotel probably has to uphold some sanitary regulation, if only because they could get sued into oblivion if they didn't, while a random airbnb host likely does not.
A bit off topic but interested in (3). WHO thinks covid is most of entirely droplet and not aerosol spread. Do you have a link to the contrary please? Not the first time I’ve heard this opinion and I’m interested to see the evidence.
I trust that I will sanitize it properly vs. a minimum wage housekeeper who prob needs to clean 50 rooms a day. Thats my plan is all airbnb and when I get there will do all the cleaning myself.
Yeah no thanks on staying at hotels where you have hundreds of people going through it and underpaid maids who "clean" tons of rooms a day. Sure that is really safe in this environment.
Haha, last Airbnb I had was mega cheap and the mattress smelled of dried piss. The hosts were nice but god I hated staying there in an extreme way, felt very unsafe.
Hotels (short of the “accommodation” in Chung King Mansions) have never made me feel this way...
It's up to you, the renter, to vet your host and rental to the best of your ability. Maybe don't pick a "mega cheap" place next time? I've used AirBnB tons of times and cannot relate even a little with all the complaints in this thread (and other HN threads).
My rule of thumb is I only use AirBnB in areas where there's a good selection of options. AirBnBs in the middle of nowhere tend to be miserable because there's no competition.
I am just saying if I can afford a hotel it's usually better quality in my experience than any Airbnb I've had... depends what you like though. I prefer hotels and I don't like the increases in rental costs that Airbnb is reported to have caused.
> Hotels (short of the “accommodation” in Chung King Mansions) have never made me feel this way...
That was probably one of my more memorable stays while traveling, it wasn't all bad though. Just not something comparable to other places I've stayed before.
This was in 2009, I think when I stayed was horrendous. A flying bug had got between the ceiling tiles and was buzzing around for about 2-3 minutes before banging into something just as I was about to fall asleep. Add on the blood on the stairs between the 11th and 12th floors and the crazy amount of prostitution (and I guess stolen electronics) and yes it wasn’t great.
And your airbnb host will be any better at cleaning? Plenty don't treat it as a business and will prefer to retaliate to negative feedback rather than correct it.
The point is that your AirBnB host (if there even is a host, which ain't a given) won't be traveling between dozens or hundreds of rooms and potentially spreading viruses among all those rooms.
By that metric, hotels are substantially worse. With an AirBnB, you're dealing with, at most, a number you can count with your fingers. With a hotel, you're - again - dealing with tens or hundreds at a time.
Critically, this means that an AirBnB has a greater chance of being able to disinfect the entire property between groups of guests, at a much lower cost. Now, whether or not AirBnB hosts are doing this is a different question, but it's at least feasible for an AirBnB (as opposed to borderline impossible for a hotel).
I agree with the working condition issues, but compared to Airbnb's a licensed hotel/hostel is at least somewhat regularly inspected by government officials to check for hygienic issues, fire/electrical code compliance, accessibility for disabled or otherwise impaired persons, and also for commercial insurance - plus you won't (as a guest) have to deal with police showing up because neighbors are annoyed by noise from an essentially illegal hotel op.
Hotels also can not ruin your chances of staying at another establishment by posting negative reviews about you because you happened to mention the shower didn't work.
Hotels do not have a shared blacklist. And generally they don't care how much you complain as long as you aren't damaging their facilities since they don't have to try to make you happy unless they want to retain your business.
Chain hotels do have shared blacklists, yes (as far as the law allows them to, GDPR says hello), but unlike Airbnb in every major city there are independent competitors.
Do you trust that the housekeeper who gets paid $15/hour and prob cleans 50 rooms a shift is really going to clean your place throughly? Also the amount of traffic in the hotel, the check-in counter, the people in the elevator, the room service food that has gone through multiple sets of hands....yeah sure this is safer.
I rather have an Airbnb that does remote check-in. Once there I will do my own cleaning and not worry about unknown traffic in my place for rest of the stay. In addition I can buy my own groceries therefore reducing another vector point of transmission.
Seems like a better proposition then the hotel IMHO if you really are scared of getting infected.
I actually think they will have a MORE inventory. The economic devastation of Covid will have people want to drive additional revenue stream and thus securitize their unused space.
So ironically it could bring AirBnb back to their roots which is grow with unused and extra rooms by individual homeowners/renters.
Yes they will. Simple option which is Airbnb contracts with a local professional cleaner and every rental in that area provide an extra cleaning service if you want to pay for it.
1. They already own the short-term rental market. Why not expand to the long-term rental market and undercut the broker fee that currently occur right now.
2. Pent up demand for travel: Reality is that once/if vaccine hit you can bet consumers are going to travel like crazy due to pent-up demand after being stuck at home for months.
3. Movement to WFH: The movement to WFH will only become more pronounce after Covid. If this is the case you will see a bunch of consumers ask why bother staying in the city I was working at if I can WFH anywhere in the world? Thus AirBnb rentals would be the key to doing this.
4. Fear of the crowds: If you had a choice of staying in a crowded hotel where perhaps the cleaning is slightly better vs. staying at a home where minimal crowd what would you chose in a world with Covid? In fact what they should do is offer an extra add-on for guest to pay for a more deep clean of the unit prior to rental.
5. Hotels with fixed cost are going to drop like flies: Means less hotel inventory globally as they go out of business.
6. Due to loss of jobs/income: More folks will need to securize their fix assets meaning house for additional income which means more inventory for Airbnb
Anyway this all assumes that a vaccine comes out and in the near-term it is going to be pretty brutal for them.
1. Work from home becomes work from anywhere: The WFH trend is here to stay and will grow. If you have an option why not stay anywhere in world and work vs. close by home? I expect we will see a big % of WFH markets be global travelers. Proving this thesis would be Airbnb can show on S1 the % of guest who book outside their home location and for stays more then 2 weeks (to account that it is not simply vacation time).
2. Stays gravitating to Tier 2 or lower vs. Tier 1: People will not want to fly or be close to other folks so you will see travel go to Tier 2 or lower cities. This helps Airbnb in two ways.. less competition as these cities won't have as much hotels...second allows them to increase their breadth of revenue based across many more cities then being dependant on just Tier 1 which have risk (regulation, disaster, etc.). Show this on S1 by % of travel that is now on Tier 2 and lower markets and how this has grown as a proportion of your overall revenue base.
3. Safety: Simple it's getting close to accepted that the #1 way of covid transmission is via airborne. Based on this you as a traveler should want to minimize as much unnecessary humans interaction as possible thus hotels suck with all the traffic that is there. You may argue that hotels have policy that are more strict on cleaning but this doesn't mean much when the way to catch covid is via airseol.
4. Inventory: With the economy still in shambles they will get more host who will monetize their living assets more and thus provide more inventory.
I could go on and on but thats my thesis.