Airbnb CEO: Travel Has Changed Forever

Airbnb Inc. Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky discusses the company’s outlook and strategy. The vacation-rental giant reported record sales and earnings that beat analysts’ estimates, proving its resilience even as the delta variant of Covid-19 prompted new travel concerns and restrictions. Chesky speaks with Emily Chang on “Bloomberg Daybreak: Asia.”
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[CC may contain inaccuracies] Big quarter for you and we’re seeing the travel rebound
happening in your numbers. You have told me quarter after

quarter that travel will never be the same. And I’m curious with
this rebound do you still believe that that travel will never be

the same. Yeah because the world’s never going to be the same.
We’re not going back to 20 19 and that means travel is not going

back. And here’s why. What I think has happened is you really
think about it before the pandemic. Most people were tethered to

where they were. They had to live near where they worked. Now
for millions or actually tens of millions of office workers many

of them are no longer tethered. Their CEOs are now offering
flexible work policies. We just saw Amazon for Procter and

Gamble. P.W. Seif all put out remote flexible work policies. And
I think they’re just a sign of things to come because companies

are actually embracing this new model. If you don’t have to go
back to office five days a week if all you have to do is believe

in a world resume to believe a world where people have more
flexibility a world of people more flexibility is a world where

we can travel more times to more locations. And when we do
travel we can stay longer. And I think this fundamentally is a

revolution in how we travel
now. Long term stays a big and growing opportunity for you. How

much bigger do you think that opportunity can be.
It’s going to get so much bigger. I think you know it’s hard to

know how long it’s going to take to grow. But to give you a
point of reference this was the fastest growing segment stays of

longer than a month before the pandemic. And what I think the
pandemic did was it accelerated an inevitable trend that we were

already going to see more and more people bought homes for a
month at a time. But what we saw with the pandemic was a massive

acceleration. It’s now 20 percent of our business our knights
that are longer than months nearly 50 percent of our business

are four nights longer than a week. And I think the lesson here
is a longer way from home. The more you want to be in a home and

increasingly keep are going to want this flexibility. So answer
question on why I think it can be a lot larger and 20 percent. I

don’t know how long it’s going to take but it’s pretty clear
where the world’s going still. You know you’ve got Australia.

It’s been closed to international tourists until just about now.
Hong Kong has these lengthy quarantines. Thailand’s still

grappling with outbreaks. Singapore stopping and starting.
What’s the impact of these delayed reopening especially in the

Asia-Pacific region.
Well I mean North America in Europe our Latin America are

outpacing a pack. But what we’ve seen is that you know just to
give you a point of reference before the pandemic half of our

business was cross-border. And in fact the majority of our
business were people crossing borders or staying in cities. What

we’ve seen is that the biggest growth we’ve seen is people not
crossing borders traveling domestically and not traveling to

cities going to vacation destinations or rural communities. What
we’ve now seen though is that as borders start to get reopened.

Growth cross-border surges. When President Biden announced an on
October 15th that borders reopen on November 8th the week after.

Within one week of that announcement cross-border bookings into
the United States were up 44 percent in one week. So obviously

we’re border still closed. Cross-border is still restricted. But
that also means that we think there’s gonna be a lot of pent up

demand. And so the longer the borders remain closed the more
pent up demand there is after. And I think travel is one of the

things that people miss the most that they felt like it’s been
taken away from them especially cross-border travel. So I think

you’re gonna see a lot more once the borders reopen. So let’s
talk about after then how do you see the mix of domestic and

cross-border travel shifting as we move forward.
I mean it will it will it will. They will read. It will come

back a bit. I don’t think you’re ever gonna see the world
looking like 20 19. Business travel will come back. The business

trouble will never come back to 2019 levels at least in the way
it was. People getting on airplanes for a meeting a year now you

can do it on Zoom. It’s much cheaper. There’ll be new types of
business travel which I think could make up the gap which are

people who are working remotely. Flying or going back to
headquarters for weeks at a time. So there’s a major shift from

business to leisure. There’s a major shift from people going to
the top destinations people traveling everywhere and no matter

how travel recovers. I think the genie is out of the bottle. I
think increasingly more and more people are going to travel

nearby. They’re going to stay longer and they’re going to travel
and off peak hours. But when we do see borders reopen and we we

do see urban come back it’s gonna be a rebalance. I don’t think
it ever goes back to 19 but it will be somewhere in between.

Hard to know exactly where. So let’s talk about holiday travel
Thanksgiving right around the corner. What are you expecting and

are you prepared if there is another wave of Covid or new
variant that takes off around the globe. I think it’s going to

be a really big holiday season. Obviously I think most people in
travel are saying that

because I think you know not everything from the pandemic that
we lost we all probably want to get back. I don’t know if

everyone for example want to go back to the office five days a
week if they don’t have to. But I do think most people want to

travel because travel is one of the most meaningful ways to
spend time with people you care about. So I think that that is

absolutely important now.
I also would say this about what if there is another variant.

Know I think anyone who was in the business of predicting the
future last year was humble. And so the best thing I can say is

if I can’t predict the future I can’t adapt to it in every
means. Business model is highly adaptable. We have nearly every

type of home with nearly every type of community at nearly every
price point for every type of trip. And so that means however

travel changes our model can adapt. So I’m very optimistic and
adaptability remodels because we have such a global network.

However changes we’ll be prepared.
Now staging rural locations are increasing but we’re still

seeing a lot of cities that are slow to recover. How are you
working with cities to help revitalize tourism.

Well it’s a great question. I mean all we’ve now worked since
the start of the pandemic with a hundred destination marketing

organizations. So demos these are essentially the tourism arms
of governments of cities or states or countries. And so what we

found was Covid was a bit of a reset on our relationship with
cities all over the world because many cities that felt like

maybe before they had too much tourism now saying they don’t
have enough tourism because when borders get closed often ask

the travelers and people don’t travel for business. Suddenly
there’s not as many people going to these cities. So I think we

are seen as inevitable solution to some of the economic
shortfalls that many these cities are seeing. And we’re working

really closely with them. We want to be good partners. You know
fun fact. We’ve collected four billion dollars in Kotel tax

since we started Air B and B. And so if we’re not the largest
collector of hotel tax in the world we probably eventually will

be. And we’re going to continue to work really closely with
these cities. Now you’ve talked over the last year and a half

about Airbnb being going back to its roots. The homes business
you know pulling back on some of those other initiatives you

were working on. And I’m curious now that the homes business has
fully rebounded. Are you looking back at expanding into flights

or further into hotels and trying to become more of a full
service provider like a bookings or an Expedia and capture more

of that wallet share of your travelers.
Yeah Emily what I would say is never say never. Nothing that we

paused
is off the table to restart once again and go really big. That

being said I’m most focused on the most perishable opportunities
and we have this huge travel rebound that we’re anticipating

that I think it’s turning into really a revolution in travel.
And so we’re focused on our core because I think this is a

defining moment in this industry. And so we’re focused on
getting as many hosts on air BMT making the process as seamless

as possible. I think short term stays long term stays and
experiences are our bread and butter because they’re all about

hosting and hosting is what makes me most different. That being
said I’ll just say this. I’m 40 years old. I started this

company was 26. And I don’t want to feel like my best days are
behind me. And the biggest innovation I did was in my 20s and

30s. So all of that is to say we’re gonna launch some really
exciting products next year and many years to come. So stay

tuned. All right. Well I mean can you tell us more. I mean give
us a hint.

OK. Well I’ll tell you that next Tuesday 8:00 a.m. Pacific
Standard Time we’re unveiling the air B twenty twenty one winter

release with more than 50 new upgrades. We’re going to show you
updates to flexible. A feature on air to me that’s use five

hundred million times. We’re gonna show ways to make it easier
to host. We’ve got a really big new offering for hosts that if

you’re interested in hosting I think this is going to be really
compelling. And next year there’s gonna be a lot of new

innovation. I think it’s gonna be built around this idea that
you can now live anywhere. Not everyone can live anywhere but

tens of millions of people can now live anywhere. That’s enough
of an opportunity for us to design for.

And then looking out you know experiences that that was that was
going to be your next big thing. And I’m curious if you still

think that will be. You know you talked about Netflix as a
competitor. How big do you think the opportunity is there. Over

time. It is. It is just huge. And I always thought Emily that 20
20 was going to be a breakout year for experiences. That’s all

the data was indicating that the next last year was going to be
a year was going to break out. And instead of breaking out the

whole thing had to be put on pause. And it’s just now ramping
back up as people get comfortable. You have to basically be

comfortable like standing next to a stranger. And so you know
this is going to be ramping up. But I’m very bullish for

experiences. And you said Netflix. I mean Netflix is wonderful.
The problem is you can only stay home and watch so many shows on

Netflix before you really just got to go to the house and have a
real experience a real person. And so I think that this is going

to be something a lot of people don’t want to do next summer
whether they’re locals or people when they’re traveling in. The

more travel is distributed outside of cities the fewer other
alternatives. There even are things to do. So this is something

I’m really bullish.
I’m just taking a longer view than I did before. You know we’re

now really looking out further because the pandemic has really
slowed the recovery. But I’m expecting some break. Pretty big

opportunities in the years to come. Well speaking of flexible
options we’ve been looking at some of your new marketing

campaigns and it’s good to know you can bring your CAC to air
being and once in a while. Yeah. Has got to bring the whole

family and to bring the whole family when you travel the dogs
the cats every family including.