EDITOR'S COMMENT
• On the day that the USA is lifting restrictions on inbound vaccinated travellers from 33 countries, Airbnb's marketing machine is in full swing with the announcement that Q3 was its "strongest quarter ever", based on the highest revenue and net income in its history. But what can we read from the numbers reported by Brian Chesky and Airbnb and to what extent does it point to a travel rebound?
It is no secret that Airbnb is facing challenges to recruit and retain hosts, particularly with increased competition from Expedia's Vrbo, but the affirmation in its Q3 earnings report that it has four million hosts on its platform, rather than "more than four million", leaves us with questions about how much the company has been impacted by lockdowns and Covid variant surges. Airbnb's Q3 marketing spend, almost double the figure in the same period in 2020, along with its Made Possible by Hosts campaign, casts some doubt over Chesky's claim that Airbnb's host community is "stronger than ever".
The Airbnb CEO has long maintained that flexibility will be a key factor in where, when and how people travel in the future, and the company's 'I'm Flexible' program has already facilitated 500 million family / group trips on flexible dates. This has catapulted longer-term trips of 28-plus days into the fastest growing category on Airbnb's platform, but with the rate of this growth slowing, it is unclear how Chesky's vision of a travel 'revolution' will play out.
We will learn more this week about the future direction of the home-sharing platform when Airbnb unveils its winter upgrades tomorrow. Expect many of these to expand on Airbnb's "most comprehensive service update ever" that was announced back in May, particularly recruiting more hosts, supporting its community, and simplifying the booking process.
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