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Pandemic a major blow for Airbnb

Alexandros Kottis, Emmanuelle Michel, Sara Magniette, Rébecca Frasquet and Julie Jammot, Agence France-Presse

<div class="embed-wrap"><figure data-feedback="fb:likes,fb:comments"><img src="http://sa.kapamilya.com/absnews/abscbnnews/media/2020/reuters/05/11/airbnb.jpg"/><figcaption>Small toy figures are seen in front of the Airbnb logo in this illustration taken March 19, 2020. Dado Ruvic, Reuters/File </figcaption></figure></div>ATHENS - At the foot of the Acropolis hill, in the touristic Koukaki district, the coronavirus lockdown has silenced the sound of Airbnb customers&#x27; wheeled luggage.The tourist industry in Athens, as in many other European capitals, has ground to a halt, with planes grounded and restaurants, museums and archaeological monuments all closed.This has left a huge hole in the Greek economy which had been recovering from a decade of crisis.Owners of small apartments in Koukaki, who had been renting them on the Airbnb platform in order to provide income during the financial crisis, are once again struggling.&quot;The reservations stopped abruptly,&quot; laments Romina Tsitou, an Airbnb host since 2014.&quot;I hope I won&#x27;t have to put them for long–term rental, but I may have to if this situation drags on,&quot; she adds. For the time being her two Airbnb apartments accommodate medical staff.Stefania Dimitroula has already put her apartment up for long-term rental.&quot;Since the beginning of the summer of 2018, it was fully booked via Airbnb, almost exclusively by foreign tourists,&quot; the 32-year-old woman said, but &quot;100 percent of the reservations for April, May and June have been cancelled&quot;. Being unemployed, she had no other choice.&quot;I was counting on the earnings of this apartment, around 1,000 euros per month, to compensate for the loss of my job,&quot; she explained, expressing pessimism about the summer season, which the Greek government is hoping to jumpstart on July 1.Long-term rentals are becoming &quot;a major trend&quot;, according to Patrick Tkatschenko, a real estate agent in Athens.&quot;Airbnb is suffering a huge blow,&quot; he told AFP.<div>AIRBNB SLASHES STAFF BUT WILL ADAPT </div>The &quot;hard hit&quot; American home-sharing platform announced on Tuesday that it will slash a quarter of its work force — some 1,900 people all around the world.&quot;We are collectively living through the most harrowing crisis of our lifetime,&quot; Airbnb co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky said in a blog post.This year the San Francisco-based company&#x27;s revenue will be &quot;less than the half&quot; of the 2019 figure, and Chesky admits he doesn&#x27;t know when the tourists will return.Still there are many who believe that holiday apartments, rather than hotels, have a future, as safe havens away from the crowds. Enrique Alcantara, president of Apartur, the holiday apartment owners&#x27; federation in Barcelona, foresees a 85 percent drop in sales revenue for 2020. He predicts though that holiday apartments &quot;are going to adapt more easily to the new times that lie ahead, to the new needs of the tourists, mainly as far as security is concerned&quot;.In Athens too, despite the staggering drop in holiday reservations, there remains a glimmer of hope.&quot;Tourists will benefit from private apartments in order to feel more secure in comparison with hotels where they will have to interact with more people,&quot; Stratos Paradias, president of the Greek Federation of Property Owners and of the International Union of Property Owners, told AFP.He also thinks apartments that manage to stay in the short-term rental market will bounce back &quot;faster than elsewhere&quot; because &quot;Greece is considered one of the safe countries thanks to the way it has handled the COVID-19 pandemic&quot;.<div>HOLDING FAST TO SHORT-TERM RENTALS </div>In Barcelona, Sybille Campagne&#x27;s holiday letting calendar is empty.&quot;For July-August, all reservations were cancelled,&quot; the 43-year-old French woman explains.Nevertheless she isn&#x27;t considering taking her apartment off the Airbnb platform because it accounts for 80 percent of all her reservations.Juan Quilis, a 35-year-old telecom technician who owns an apartment in Seville, is also sticking with short-term rentals for the time being.&quot;I&#x27;m not too worried for now, because I have a savings cushion but if I see that things don&#x27;t come around, I will put my apartment in long term rental. As a last resort.&quot;In France, Airbnb expects to see its reservations come back swiftly thanks to its local clientele, with the French particularly fond of staycations.Aurelien Perol, Airbnb director of communication in France, expects last-minute reservations to rise as lockdowns are lifted.Meanwhile in Amsterdam, holiday rentals spiked in mid- April and have plummeted since, according to the local newspaper Het Parool.<div>&#x27;PURGE IS NECESSARY&#x27; </div>A study conducted by Spitogatos, the most popular online property ads network in Greece, found a clear rise in apartments listed for long-term rentals in mid-April, accounting for 30 percent of the market in central Athens.Spitogatos CEO Dimitris Melachroinos thinks the long-term rental sector will keep rising as it will be seen as &quot;a safer option&quot;.This new turn in the real estate market will also lead to much-needed regulation of the sector.&quot;The short-term rentals practice grew out of control in Athens in recent years. The purge provoked by the COVID-19 crisis is necessary,&quot; Paradias says. In Koukaki, the number of short-time rentals skyrocketed between 2017-2019, from 360 to 1,150, according to AIRDNA, which analyses rental platforms like Airbnb. As a result, property prices have nearly doubled causing problems for local apartment seekers.<div> © Agence France-Presse</div>

The "hard hit" American home-sharing platform announced on Tuesday that it will slash a quarter of its work force — some 1,900 people all around the world. Still there are many who believe that holiday apartments, rather than hotels, have a future, as safe havens away from the crowds.

The "hard hit" American home-sharing platform announced on Tuesday that it will slash a quarter of its work force — some 1,900 people all around the world. Still there are many who believe that holiday apartments, rather than hotels, have a future, as safe havens away from the crowds.

Pandemic a major blow for Airbnb

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Pandemic a major blow for Airbnb

Alexandros Kottis,

Emmanuelle Michel,

Sara Magniette,

Rébecca Frasquet and Julie Jammot,

Agence France-Presse

Published May 11, 2020 07:47 AM PHT

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Updated May 11, 2020 08:14 AM PHT

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