May 5th: A company update from Airbnb

[Airbnb]

COVID-19 has fundamentally changed the travel industry, and today we shared the difficult news that we’re reducing the size of the Airbnb workforce. This week we’re focused on taking care of our employees, and we’d like to ask for your understanding and patience as we spend time supporting them. Here’s what you can expect in the next week:

• We’ll continue to respond on our social channels, in the Community Center, and through our community support team
• We will reach out to partner with a small group of community leaders from around the world to gather feedback and common questions 
• Brian Chesky, our CEO, will hold a live Host Update on May 13 to answer top questions and address what matters to you most

Brian shared this note with the team today, which is a summary of what’s happening. 

We remain committed to supporting you and your guests and to rebuilding our businesses together. We’ll be in touch again soon.

[Robin4]

@Airbnb 

I also am saddened to hear that so many employees are to be terminated. I have always had the best quality support from all concerned at Airbnb and it seems so cruel that, with an end in sight another way may have been found to keep as many of these employees in the wings until this pandemic is under control. 

To many of you I may seem irresponsible, but I have opened up my listing again for booking. It was not a decision I took lightly but, I do have to look at the facts. In our state there has not been a new case of COVID-19 for two weeks, there are currently only 4 active cases left in the state, the chance of coming into contact with a coronavirus sufferer is about as close to zero as it is possible to get!

I have agonised over what I would do if another 'hot-spot' should suddenly emerge in this state but I do have confidence our government have been tackling this pandemic in the correct way.

Within half an hour of going live again, I got a Stayz booking for tonight and tomorrow night and this morning I got an Airbnb reservation for this coming weekend. Travel within the sate is now allowed and many retail businesses are now open to trade again. 

If a travel environment is safe, people will travel. I will not accept bookings from outside of my state at this stage but I will review that as the country gets nearer to getting this virus eradicated. 

One really interesting feature of the current situation, I am registered with a semi-government app called ‘Flu-tracking’ which is centered in the Hunter/New England area of NSW but is national in coverage, and each week on a Monday morning I receive and email with a link to fill in a short questionnaire detailing any flu like symptoms either I or my wife have had in the preceding week.

The information gained with this survey of which there are many hundreds of thousands of participants is to track where flu hot-spots are occurring, enabling more resources to be targeted into those areas.

An interesting byproduct of COVID-19 is that enforced social distancing has all but wiped out cases of Influenza in Australia. At the moment the number of cases nationally is at a historic all time low.

It is probably that we will this year experience the lowest number of flu cases since records have been kept.

If any other Aussies reading this wishes to join ‘Flu Tracking', I highly recommend it, here is the join link.

https://www.flutracking.net/Join

The survey each week takes less than 30 seconds and just requires ticking 6 yes/no option boxes for each person in the residence.

See, we have had a torrid time with the coronavirus but, every cloud has a silver lining!

I would just like to say to Airbnb, don't burn all your bridges, if governments and their citizens around the world do the right thing this will disappear as quickly as it arrived. 

Cheers……..Rob

@Helen350  @Melodie-And-John0  @Yadira22  @José70 

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Robin4 ,  It sounded like a great idea,  a Funny thing happened on the way to "Signing up for flutracker" I found out its only in Australia!   Thats not going to help me !!!!! Hahaha. 

But on another note, Bearpath Lodging has been open nearly through the entire thing, we had a nice young man stay with us last night and we won't go into that space for at least 12 hours, when we do, it will be with gloves, masks and disinfectant a blazing.  Our secluded little Glamper opens this week for the season and its booked for a week starting the tenth.

https://airbnb.com/h/tiny-home-glamper-at-bearpath-lodging

I think its going to be a bigger hit this year than the other two suites, its your own little home, no sharing or chance meetings of anyone other than the hosts and a groundhog that lives on site, just complete privacy on your own 2 acres.  Hopefully that will help fill in some of the blanks where money once was!   Stay well, JR  

[Helen350]

He does a good sales pitch, doesn't he? 😄 😄 😄 😄 😄 😄 😄 😄

- Have fun @Melodie-And-John0 & I look forward to hearing how it all goes thoughout  your busy season! 🙂

[Robin4]

@Melodie-And-John0 

Yeah I did say John, it's for Aussies, but I would be surprised if there wasn't something similar operating in the US. It's a great concept and the side benefit at the moment is, it tells the survey compilers where COVID-19 tests have been conducted which helps a lot in tracking. One of those questions is....'In the past week have you been tested for COVID-19 symptoms yes/no!'

You sound like you are in an environment where social distancing is easy to maintain, and we are fairly much as well John. I don't have to have close contact with guests unless I choose to!

At the moment I think it comes down to common sense. I will not accept a guest from mainland China for the rest of this year mainly because I do not feel the numbers of reported cases in China is an accurate reflection of the state of the disease in that nation. I don't think we are getting a complete picture!

At this stage it is only locals and I will reviewing the rest of Australia as requests come. One other state is virus free and another only has 1 positive case.....but at this stage social travelling between states is prohibited, so we are pretty safe. 

A few penny in the piggy bank will be nice again..........assuming Airbnb has the money in their piggy bank to fulfill these payouts!    ;-((

Cheers......Rob 

[Robin4]

@Melodie-And-John0 

That van looks in wonderful condition John, that's a great resource to have.

Some of our best years were spent in a motor-home about that size. We traveled a lot of the country in it during the nineties. It gives you a nice feeling being in a van like that, you truly feel you are on holiday and away from your regular life! Worth every cent of it I would say!

I notice from one of your photos you are not that far from a wind farm. Do you ever hear anything from the closer turbines? There has been a bit of backlash from residents here who claim the turbines do impact on their lives in some way. Scientific research says it doesn't and put their gripes down to the fact they were not consulted before the turbines started going up and will invent any reason to complain about them.

You have got that van nicely set out and I hope that it does well for you John.

Cheers......Rob

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Robin4 thanks Rob, its a pretty cool and cozy little home on wheels.  I was lucky to already have a septic tank and power located on that spot so it wasn't tough to install.  We opened it last July and it rented very well all summer into the fall.  

We do have about 40 larger wind turbines in our county, three within half a mile of us.  Personally, I think they are great neighbors but there are both liberals and conservatives in the area that find reasons to hate them.  Some swear they are obnoxiously loud but you really need to be pretty close to hear them, I only occasionally hear a whisper of a whooshing sound from the ones near us and only on a quiet day when I am outside.  Others say the blade sunlight flicker is very distracting and could cause seizures, very few homes are even close enough to see that and because the sun is always on the move, it lasts only for a few minutes on most effected.  Still others claim they slice and dice birds like a vegematic, I have never seen dead ones below them. Some think they destroy their pristine views but to be sure, you cant actually own a view unless your paying the taxes for the land that view is part of.  Then the smattering of conspiracy theory and fear of large things make up the rest of the haters.  

I was interviewed by a local PBS TV station a few years ago, they wanted so bad for me to say negative things about the Mills and record loud noise but I really didnt have much to say other than Im glad my neighbors that own the property they are on are making a little money to help them pay the taxes on their farms and the mills were being quiet as well.  To be honest, In my opinion, its not the best way to deploy alternative NRG generation equipment, I would rather see 4000 smaller turbines in rural citizens homesteads (like yours) than 40 giants but its the Army we have, not the one we want.  Stay well, JR

[Sarah977]

@Melodie-And-John0  I'd take some whooshing sounds and a few minutes of sunlight flicker over the possibility of a nuclear power plant meltdown any day.

[Melodie-And-John0]

@Sarah977 , windmills dont bother me at all Sarah, human on the other hand can be a problem.  Stay well, JR

[Marg11]

Well done Rob to open again and yes, the spin-offs are interesting. We didn't close here in Perth, WA despite staying at home but all bookings were cancelled except a rural regular. However, only those in the metro-Peel area can come here unless for medical or work reasons as our state has been divided into 4 separate zones. Like you interstate travel has stopped guests booking from other states. Our infection rate is low so front line staff don't need short term stays. However, FIFO (fly in fly out) mining staff need safe places to stay for their breaks and 14-day isolation on arrival in WA so we have picked up some bookings. 

Unlike many investor hosts, we use our flat attached to our house which cost us nothing when empty. With solar panels, the costs are low when we have guests so we can keep charging $50 AU a night and $300 AU a week with basic breakfast supplies, and general necessities supplied. 

We feel for the staff who will be leaving Airbnb as we have had great and almost instant support when needed by kind, caring and understanding people. 

[Jennifer1421]

This is incredibly sad news. 1900 people. That is 600 people more than population of the small town I grew up in.
 
I find this release raises a couple of questions in my mind:

1. My assumption is that all of these 1900 souls were *actual* employees of Airbnb, rather than employees of other companies contracted by Airbnb to provide different kinds of services to the company. Is this an opportunity being taken by the company to rid itself of very expensive direct employees and to better position itself, once travel begins to resume, to add people back in who are employed on a  contracted/gig worker basis?

I am a host in Canada, and there has long been a trend in both private companies and public institutions (such as universities) to shift the workforce from the traditional employee model. Certainly such workers are far less expensive, given that benefits such as health care, employment insurance, public or private pension contributions etc. need not be paid to/on behalf of contracted workers. The current health-care crisis has laid bare the incredibly detrimental effect on society of such workforce modelling.

For a company that likes to tout itself as progressive, using the current situation to transition to a regressive employment model (using the current disruption as cover) to save itself the cost of compensating its workers fairly in a post-pandemic world would be horrifically cynical, wouldn't it?
 
I note that here in the CC, we've recently had 2 new mods (not directly employed by ABB) added, even while traditionally-employed workers are being made redundant. Why would that be?
 
2. This "transparent" letter, telling us that 1900 people no longer have employment does not tell us (a) what departments are specifically being decimated; thereby also failing to tell us (b) how we, as hosts and supposed "partners", will be affected both in the moment as we try to cope with the current situation, and as the company re-positions itself for a post-pandemic come back.

Taking this statement from the letter: "Travel in this new world will look different, and we need to evolve Airbnb accordingly. People will want options that are closer to home, safer, and more affordable.", and putting it together with the Bloomberg Businessweek article from April 22nd, titled "Airbnb's Future Depends on a Post-Pandemic Travel Boom" where Chesky is quoted as saying he sees "an expanding business offering longer-term rentals to city dwellers", along with Chesky saying, "once the worst is over, he'll market in-person activities that people can do in their own cities".

So: longer term stays and more ABB Experiences. How will these soon-to-be-marketed facets affect current independent rural hosts, in-home hosts and others who are no longer aligned with new plan?

I would suggest that if you are one of these types of hosts, you start brainstorming a Plan B, as it seems to me that life after the Great Pause will not be rosy for your future with this platform.
 
 
When I first joined Airbnb, I thought to myself that the business model was as near perfect as could be achieved. This is a company that:
(i) needs very little of its own capital invested in traditional bricks and mortar, thereby reducing its operations expense to the barest minimum;
(ii) by virtue of the model, there is very little risk borne by the company - the bulk of the risk is held by hosts (which we have keenly felt in the last 2 months);
(iii) the use of the CC is "evil-genius" type clever - the company has created an environment where hosts do a great deal of the work of traditional Customer Support FOR FREE, thereby eliminating the need to employ nearly as many people working in such departments;

(iv) the gamification of the model (read: Superhost status) has been designed such that there is a hugely reduced need for the platform to police the quality of its offering - we as hosts do it ourselves in our hopes to earn the ever coveted 5-stars (also "evil-genius" level clever);

(v) by constantly adding supply (especially by the indirectly encouraged arbitrage model) there is also no need for the company to worry about product being priced out of the market.
(vi) as we have just learned from this announcement - this is a GLOBAL company, which has achieved a nearly complete global reach, with only 7500 employees. How clear can it be that the overhead needed to operate is bone-thin?
 
All of these are reasons, in my mind, for Airbnb to be uniquely positioned to ride this storm out with a very large amount of liquidity squirreled away to sustain operations for a very very long time.
 
So, I guess the last question that this notice raises in my mind is:
 
3. WHAT HAPPENED?

[Helen350]

DELIGHTED you're hosting again @Robin4 ! It's good for you, good for your guests, good for the economy,  & good for Airbnb! We want people hosting, don't want Airbnb going under, do we? They've done me proud, warts & all; I could never host on any other platform! 😉 

This business with the tracking apps....... Sounds good, tho' I'll never be participating cos I don't have a smart phone..... but I can't help wondering how reliable the data is.... Can people report virus symptoms, which then get 'logged' as hot spot, when it's actually something else?

 - I had a nurse stay with me one night, on 14 Mar, just as it was all taking off. She'd been sent home from A&E/ER early cos she was not well. As we had a long chat round the table, I said, 'I hope it's not Coronavirus!' - 'It's not Coronavirus!', she laughed, joked & scorned.... 2 days later, I myself had a headache for 4 days, followed by sore throat for 5 days, followed by slightly tight chest, & occasional phlegm-y cough. No fever, No persistent dry cough, no fatigue. I diagnosed myself with an UPPER respiratory tract infection, like I often get.

- My point is, would some people use the app to make out they had Covid-19 with my symptoms? A sort of false positive? Or do you detail symptoms in a way that allows for confounding variables; vaguely Covid symptoms which may be something else?

HAPPY HOSTING! Betts will be pleased! 🙂 

[Robin4]

@Helen350 

Looks like there is a glitch in the system!

Just tried to post a missive to you but ran foul of an administration error and I (as always happens when I don't copy it prior to submitting) lost it. Time being after midnight here I will have another crack at a response in the morning.

Stay safe Helen,

Cheers......Rob

[Stephanie]

Hey @Robin4 ,

If you see that error again, do you mind taking a screenshot for me? It's plagued a couple of other users but we need the error code to get it over to the techies to fix.

Many thanks,

Steph

[Stephanie]

Hiya @Jennifer1421 ,

Thanks for your feedback and questions. We are all still working through the changes happening so will need a bit of time to come back, however I do. have a bit of information regarding your question:

"How will these soon-to-be-marketed facets affect current independent rural hosts, in-home hosts and others who are no longer aligned with new plan?"

When we think about our roots, we think about hosts sharing their homes with guests. That’s not about the type of listing the host shares, or the type of booking the guest makes. It’s about the things that will still be true, even if travel changes: that people want connection and belonging. We’re going to focus even more on supporting hosts who provide these unique aspects of hospitality. 

We’re seeing that some hosts and guests want longer stays as they respond to changes in travel, but that’s not the only type of bookings we’ll see. Our focus will be helping hosts get the bookings that work for them—for any length of stay. 

Thank you for being patient with us as we collect your feedback and answer when possible.

Stephanie

[Helen350]

@Jennifer1421 Who knows what future direction things will take? Now it's  'Back to their roots, back to basics, everyday people who host in their homes', but as you said, a previous announcement said there would be a move to LTR & experiences. And as others have noted people won't want to pay daily large commissions on LTR, when there are cheaper alternatives.