The Future of Short-Term Rentals After the Pandemic and an Airbnb IPO


Skift Take

The entire hospitality industry would agree that short-term rentals led the tentative recovery in the spring and into the summer in many parts of the world. But a key question will be how will they respond when hotels and cities come back in earnest — and with vaccines a real possibility, they certainly will.

Whether it is for hosts, property managers or platforms, liquidity and survival are the overriding issues for the short-term rental industry at this stage of the pandemic, and will remain so for an extended period. The Covid-19 crisis is far from over. Having chopped workforces, rejiggered business models, halted investments and product initiatives, or shut operations, the short-term rental industry around the world faces varying degrees of resurrected lockdowns and other challenges as the coronavirus outbreak spikes and dips. For example, Skift Research's U.S. Travel Tracker October 2020, completed in early November right before the U.S. presidential election, showed that only 37 percent of Americans traveled in October, with visiting friends and families the most popular reason, and small towns and the countryside constituted the most popular destinations. Still, hotel stays jumped significantly, eight percentage points to 56 percent of all stays in October, according to the survey. That was the biggest jump for hotels since the pandemic's beginning.

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But it is going to be a long hard winter for the travel industry in many parts of the globe as international visitors slowed to a trickle or were totally absent, and there will be additional bankruptcies, layoffs and pain. Did the short-term rental industry cut deep enough in the spring? Will there be ample funding to survive? The entire hospitality industry would acknowledge that short-term rentals led the tentative recovery in the Spring and into the Summer in many parts of the world. But a key question for the industry will be how will short-term rentals respond when hotels and cities come back in earnest — and with vaccines a real possibility, they certainly will. Regulation is A Crisis for Hosts and Platforms The short-term rental industry hasn't solved a core issue: Although the gig economy provided a lifeline to property owners and to destinations dependent on tourism revenue in the pre-pandemic era, it also disrupted neighborhoods, and contributed