Skift Take
Airbnb has legions of critics, and it knows that its articulated stakeholder goals will get intense scrutiny. But if the company turns some of these corporate governance aspirations into reality, then it could emerge looking pretty good compared with many established travel industry companies offering just lip service.
In the run-up to the World Economic Forum next week in Davos, Switzerland, where stakeholder capitalism will be a central theme, Airbnb released an update on its goal "to be among the first of the true 21st-century companies."
Consider the update, despite the lofty rhetoric, another step toward Airbnb's not-inconsequential other goal — becoming a public company this year.
Among the news in the update, Airbnb will establish a formal stakeholder committee on its board of directors, it detailed metrics that will be tied to employee bonuses, and announced it plans to grant $100 million over the next 10 years to local communities.
Here are six takeaways from the Airbnb stakeholder update, which might be considered its stake in the ground and aspirations as a practitioner of stakeholder capitalism:
1. Disclosures About Metrics
There are some interesting disclosures in the update about metrics that Airbnb aims to achieve. Airbnb disclosed that as of this month, 70 percent of stays globally involved both verified guests and hosts. Airbnb's pledges to get this number to 100 percent by December 15.
One statistic Airbnb released that is potential misleading is that from October 1, 2018 to September 30, 2019, 99.97 percent of its trips had no Host Guarantee claim of more than $500; the company said that there were no reported personal sa
