With the Covid-19 pandemic hitting the tourism industry badly, it’s no surprise that many tourism businesses have tried to change focus and find revenue streams elsewhere. For Airbnb, it has seen this change of focus as an even bigger opportunity to disrupt a new market entirely and move away from just becoming a go-to platform for managing private holiday accommodation. Basically, AirBnB wants to revamp the idea of landlords entirely with long-term rental projects.
Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky shared this vision with The Verge, where he sees the technology adapting to drastically change the way people rent and making the job of a landlord much easier as the software takes care of all the details for you:
We just think there’s this huge inflection point in travel brought on by the pandemic. And so we wanted to adapt our service to this changing world and kind of really ride this wave. I think eventually in the future people will start paying for rent the way they pay for cable television, or for Netflix, you pay on a month-to-month basis.
So almost all this old system of renting, you don’t need to do anymore. That is stuff that was invented before the technology allowed almost all this to be automated. It’s like using a rotary dial phone, suddenly we have smartphones.
Chesky goes on to say that more than 60 percent of Airbnb listings in New York City are rented on a monthly basis, so there is some evidence to back up what he is saying. He makes some good points on how the rental industry has struggled to evolve, though I do think just adding technology into the mix won’t change the surety that investors will need from tenants moving in. There will always be a need for long-term letting options, which are often preferred by both parties.
There are certain aspects of Airbnb that can be used to assist many aspects of communication, without needing to worry about proof of income or deposits, as Airbnb’s rating system takes the place of this. Other forms of maintenance involved with renting makes it easier for landlords to find people to rent their units to without needing to pay expensive agent fees. And that might be a big market for them to tap into, even if there are other apps that are already doing this too.
Last Updated: May 28, 2021
Jane Hearn
May 29, 2021 at 01:48
This sounds a bit desperate to me and destructive too. In addition to the pandemic killing off tourist demand, the company knows that cities and tenancy groups will continue to push back. The reality is Airbnb consumes housing and the platform quickly became the domain of property management companies. The penetration into urban apartment market has clearly displaced long term residents and is adding to housing insecurity, especially in places like Sydney and Eastern Suburbs. It hasn’t been a “home-sharing” company for a long time. There is not even any pretense of that anymore, although NSW Planning Minister still wants to call investment apartments used for Airbnb “home-sharing”.