
Is This the End of Airbnb? - brunoluiz
https://www.wired.co.uk/article/airbnb-coronavirus-losses
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cactus2093
Clearly they're spending a lot of money, and maybe they'll need to do layoffs
and/or other budget cuts to make it through this, but I imagine Airbnb will
actually come out of this even stronger relative to the rest of the hotel
industry.

They don't own or lease buildings the way other hotel chains do, or have their
own maintenance or cleaning staff, so they've got to be losing less money per
unit right now while everything is shut down. If some hosts over-extended
themselves on mortgages for their rental properties and get foreclosed on,
that's not really Airbnb's problem. They may even get bailed out by the
government, which then directly benefits Airbnb.

And in the medium term, I think their booking rates might bounce back quicker
than other hotels. In a world where the lockdowns have lifted but we're still
recommending/enforcing social distancing in most places, which could last
years, I imagine the demand to go and stay in a traditional, crowded hotel in
Paris or NYC is still going to be pretty low. Business travel may not pick
back up very quickly, as companies cut costs in the recession plus they've
seen how meetings can mostly be done fine remotely. Massive conferences with
thousands of people seem unlikely to happen for a very long time.

But people will still want some kind of leisure and vacation. Renting a house
or cottage a couple hours away on a lake or in a small vacation town is a
relatively safe thing to do where you can maintain social distancing pretty
well, which is the scenario where I'm most likely to use Airbnb instead of a
hotel.

On top of that, local governments have bigger problems to worry about than
short-term rentals right now, so Airbnb may also get a couple years break from
their constant legal battles with various cities.

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dumbfounder
Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers? Or in
a house where you can keep distance from other families? We tried to rent a
house down south (SC, GA, FL) where we could have a pool and our kids could
swim, but most states have no short term rental orders in effect. As soon as
those lift I think you will see certain properties bounce back. No hotels for
us until this thing clears up.

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Barrin92
>Agreed. Where do you want to be, in a hotel around a bunch of strangers?

Personally in a hotel because I at least know that the hotel is going to be
cleaned.

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shalmanese
A hotel being cleaned is a person you don't know entering your room every day
and breathing all over everything. I'd much rather a single house where you
can do a deep clean yourself on the day you move in and then be sure nobody
except yourselves have entered the house until you've left.

~~~
lasgsf
Same here. What if Airbnb has option where you pay extra for a deep clean
before you check-in from approved vendors?

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1024core
I still can't wrap my head around the fact that they have 14,000 employees.
Fourteen thousand. For a company that owns no hotels or motels, no real-estate
(other than their offices, of course). The website is decent (but no
amazeballs), which is all there is to AirBnB (other than customer service, of
course). I don't understand why this all can't be done by, say, 1000 or so
employees.

~~~
geronb
Current employee here. The employee count is actually 7000, half of what you
stated. Not sure where you got 14,000.

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lasgsf
and a big chunck is contractors or low-level customer support right?

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geronb
Yes, most is non-tech

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betaby
But why it's burning hole in the finances? AirBnB is all marketing. Scale down
your cloud instances and don't spend on ads? What exactly burning money at the
rate of 1B per month? It's not clear from the article at all.

~~~
ksml
I'm sure it doesn't account for 1B a month, but paying employees is really
expensive and airbnb has a lot of them

~~~
flatiron
1B a month just in employees is over 100k employees making 100k a year. i know
the tech ones make more but i assume the customer support makes less. that's a
lotttt of employees

~~~
davidwang34
it's not quite that simple. if an employee makes 100k a year in salary, they
cost much more than that to the company - the company has to pay for payroll
taxes, health insurance, any benefits like PTO or free food, not to mention
all the infrastructure the employee uses like the office building,
electricity, air conditioning, etc. according to a comment above, airbnb has
14,000 employees. that's a lot of office space and benefits to be paying for.
and that's just the employee costs, not counting anything else

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rmason
The question they should be asking is will this kill Marriott and Hilton's
recently launched AirBnB competitors?

While I'm sure Marriott and Hilton will get a ton of federal money they've got
a ton of real estate mortgages to deal with right now. It would be pretty easy
(especially if these efforts don't have a lot of traction and are costing a
lot of money to keep afloat) to just shut them down.

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watertom
Airbnb

If infection does not confer immunity could we be looking at the end of:

Hotels, Shopping Malls, Eat in restaurants, Bars, Amusement Parks, Move
Theaters, Clubs, Theaters, Public swimming pools, State and National parks,
Beaches, Air travel, Train Travel, Bus Travel, Recirculating HVAC systems,
Office buildings, Pro sports, college sports, high school sports, sports in
general, gyms, parties, funerals,

Just to name a few.

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aussiegreenie
Just remember why they started, a bloke could not afford to pay his rent.
There was a popular conference and he offered to let someone stay at his house
sleeping on an airbed.

It was a hack. If the economy stays bad for a period of time both travellers
and host will need an Airbnb or similar. Travellers want cheaper accommodation
and host will need the money.

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dzonga
airbnb is not a bad business, as a localized venture. imagine each city had
it's own version of airbnb run by the local city council. not some vc funded,
destroy regulations & rental market at all costs, company. a city owned short
term rental market would be both beneficial to cities, tourists n hosts. aye,
if there's any salesperson out there wanna partna on to build a platform we
can sell to cities, I"m open.

~~~
charia
The hotels in any city would lobby to kill any sort of government intrusion
into the private sector like that.

On top of that cities prefer nice compartmentalized systems, short term
rentals are hotels, long term rentals are apartments. City planners designate
different areas for different use cases, airbnb style rentals go against this
and raise all sorts of problems. This is one of the major reasons why cities
generally dislike airbnb.

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FreekNortier
I have an Airbnb booking for December 2020. Would it be best to cancel now
when there is still a chance of a refund?

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jsilence
Let the invisible hand of the market sort it out. Don't bail, let them fail.

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diogenescynic
One can only hope.

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PeterStuer
The end? I could only wish.

That this social cancer was allowed to fester for so long means it will just
raise it's ugly head once again when conditions are right.

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rotterdamdev
I hope so. It's cancer on our society.

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badpassword
in bali, hotels are now offering 3,000,000 rupiahs for 30 days stay

that's about 6-7 usd / day

no breakfast / food / mineral water cleaning every 2 weeks

minimum airbnb price floor is like what? 10 usd / day?

that's 50% more expensive than hotel chains in bali for months to come

