GlobalData says, Airbnb could lose significant portion of host community to long-term rental sites

Saturday, April 18, 2020

Recently the Airbnb hosts around the world have been losing the vast majority of their bookings and they need a reliable form of income sooner rather than later. GlobalData says that a growing number of hosts have deleted their Airbnb listings to make way for month-to-month leasing.

Ralph Hollister, Travel & Tourism Analyst at GlobalData, commented that former Airbnb hosts are now listing their properties on longer term rental platforms. In the US, hosts are using listing services like San Francisco-based month-to-month rental service Kopa and Austin-based full-home medium-term rental platform Homads.

Airbnb assumes  that hosts may not return to the company when the impact of COVID-19 lessens.

Jack Forbes – CEO of Kopa, stated that rental sites such as Airbnb have an average annual occupancy rate of under 50%, whereas sites like Kopa aim for an occupancy rate of 95%. The growing allure of long-term rental sites will increase as they offer higher levels of reliability and security.

Hollister went on saying that according to GlobalData’s survey, 51% of Americans are extremely concerned about the COVID-19 outbreak, and 77% are expecting the situation to worsen in the next month. This may explain why hosts in the US have been so quick to state their loyalty elsewhere in order to boost their income.

When a guest cancels on Airbnb, hosts receive some compensation, but Airbnb created a policy whereby hosts are forced to give refunds to guests cancelling due to the pandemic.

This has left many hosts feeling betrayed by Airbnb as the company left them to fend for themselves.

Due to a significant amount of financial loss mainly due to COVID-19, Airbnb received a US$1bn vote of confidence from major Silicon Valley investors. While the  new funds included US$5m towards special relief grants to head off growing dismay among hosts.

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