Subscribe
Login
Hotels

Airbnb Outlines 2021 Vision After Weathering $4.6 Billion Pandemic Year Loss

Dennis Schaal photo
Dennis Schaal

Photo Credit: Pictured is Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky. He said February 25, 2021 that one goal is to add hosts this year. Skift

Skift Take

Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said what the company's customers really want are unique stays and experiences offered by individual hosts. That means expanding Airbnb's hotel business doesn't seem to be the priority it once was. And, oh yeah, the proliferation of corporate hosts like Sonder and others, doesn't mesh with what Chesky believes travelers desire.

Listening to Airbnb's first earnings call as a public company, versus that of Booking Holdings a day earlier, was a study in strategy contrasts. Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said experiences and hotels would be important for Airbnb in 2021, but he seemed to downplay the importance of expanding its fledgling hotel business. On the other hand, on Wednesday night, Booking Holdings CEO Glenn Fogel said he didn't care too much what the mix of traveler preferences would be for hotels versus short-term rentals — actually hotels is a higher margin business — coming out of the pandemic because his company could offer whatever travelers prefer. Chesky said Thursday in the company's fourth quarter and full-year earnings call with analysts that he's proud of Airbnb's

Hotel coverage is exclusive for Skift Pro subscribers.

Subscribe for full access to all Skift coverage for as low as $55 a month.
See the latest hotel headlines.

Apple Pay, Google Pay, Paypal, VISA, Mastercard, Discover, American Express

Already a subscriber? Login