Contents
Theme of the Week: How Airbnb adapts to circumstances
New York University professor Scott Galloway is confident that after the IPO, Airbnb will be worth more than the three largest hotel chains combined. In his blog, the marketer, known for radical forecasts, names the reasons why the sharing platform is doing better than traditional companies. Airbnb has 7 million addresses, more than the combined total of all hotels held by Marriott International, Hilton Worldwide, InterContinental Hotels Group, Wyndham Hotel Group and Hyatt Hotels. The largest niche of affordable accommodation, occupied by most of Airbnb’s rental offerings, still lacks a global hotel brand. At the same time, the company occupies significant positions in other price segments. Galloway claims that the company even outperformed global online booking systems and airlines. In his opinion, all of them, unlike Airbnb, although they use global data, they have only local significance as a business. The hospitality industry, the professor argues, has experienced an unprecedented shock due to the pandemic: even wars reduce hotel occupancy rates to only 50-60%, so no company in the market could have foreseen a drop to 0%. And in these circumstances, Airbnb also offers better value for money than hotels. Private apartments and villas benefit from the lack of registration, numerous staff and common areas like hotel restaurants and pools. Galloway is also impressed by the scale of the anti-crisis measures that the flexible structure has taken: management has cut their salaries, forced mass layoffs have been humane and open, and marketing costs have been promptly reduced by almost $1 billion. As a result, the professor concludes, the company is “fully combat-ready.”
Meanwhile, in the US, Airbnb is cracking down on unwanted bookings. The country is experiencing a boom in rental houses and apartments for parties amid the closure of nightclubs due to COVID-19. Renting such a room can cost up to $1000 per day, and tickets are served on online services and social networks for $90. Host Compliance, which collects data on violations of short-term rentals, reported that from June to September 2020, the number of complaints from citizens increased by 250%. Party organizers began to actively earn money by turning rented accommodation into one-day nightclubs. Sharing platforms still cannot cope with irresponsible hosts, because, having been blacklisted on one site, they place an offer on another or change their account beyond recognition. The appearance of Airbnb in the headlines of articles about illegal parties is not good for the company’s reputation on the eve of the long-awaited IPO. In August 2020, Airbnb implemented a new security policy and monitors its inventory of properties to detect listings for party rentals. For persons under 25 years old, the system does not allow you to book accommodation for one night in the region of residence. According to the company, since August, more than 380 ads have been blocked, and the service has canceled 9 bookings in the United States and Canada as “suspicious”.
“I am sure that next year Airbnb will become the most valuable company in the hospitality industry and one of the ten strongest brands in the world,” Scott Galloway, professor at New York University.
Week number
Outdoorsy camper sharing revenue to more than double in 2020 to $ 62 million.
How it works
Thanks to the pandemic, American RV rental service Outdoorsy has been able to increase revenue by 60% despite a near-total absence of bookings during the lockdown. As soon as severe restrictions ceased to operate in the country, the situation for this company changed dramatically. The ability to travel bypassing airports and hotels has become a lifesaver for Americans – a motor home allows you to maintain social distance. In June 2020, visitors to the Outdoorsy website doubled compared to a year earlier.
Outdoorsy was created by a married couple, Jen Young and Jeff Kevins, in 2015. The idea arose as a solution to a contradiction: in the US, about 17 million vans were idle 300 days a year, while most Americans could not afford their own van. Partners estimated the volume of the audience for sharing motorhomes at 70 million families. Renting a vehicle with all amenities costs an average of $145 per day, plus paying for parking at the campsite and fuel. In the current circumstances, Outdoorsy is actively attracting new customers who have never rented a van before, and on average, renters are planning longer trips than before.
“There is a quick reaction of people to the fact that you still need to have something of your own. Some kind of rollback [in the development of the sharing economy] will definitely happen,” Dmitry Grishin, founder of the Grishin Robotics Foundation and co-founder of Mail.ru Group.
One line
- Getaround carsharing has attracted $140 million in investments for the development of contactless technologies in the US and Europe.
- In Boston, a non-profit organization will launch affordable carsharing for low-income users.
- Delimobil car sharing launches two free routes from Moscow to Nizhny Novgorod and St. Petersburg.
- Former WeWork CEO invests in home service sharing Alfred.
- Former Apple designer to reimagine Airbnb services.
- Second hand glasses from the Dutch brand Ace & Tate will appear on the Depop resale platform for the first time.
- In Mexico City, a group of amateur cyclists bought 1 shared bikes that Uber planned to destroy as unnecessary.
What to see
Video tour of the CoLab music coworking in St. Petersburg. As part of the Day Without Turnstiles project, CoLab founder Gennady Vasilyev shows a platform for the collaboration of musicians, vocalists and producers. This dedicated co-working space features soundproofed rooms, dedicated music production and processing equipment, a full-fledged professional recording studio, and classic workspaces with meeting rooms.
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