Airbnb News

Love it or hate it, you can hardly blame Airbnb for a deflated valuation, although not all of the plunge is coronavirus-related. The pain that is infecting travel and other companies at this moment is boundless.

Silver Lake and Sixth Street likely got a very attractive deal in exchange for their investment.

Airbnb initially made a pro-guest decision on refunds, but it now realizes its policy and its outreach to hosts was clumsy and unsatisfactory. Hosts still won't be pleased, but the optics and financials aren't as bad as before.

Airbnb will likely have no trouble raising money, assuming the valuation and terms are palatable to investors, but it's dubious that they will chip in a few hundred million dollars each based on the supposedly inherent advantages of Airbnb's product.

Many of Airbnb's previous funding rounds were oversubscribed. But if Airbnb indeed taps new venture capital funding, it won't have trouble finding benefactors. Still, the company's valuation will be considerably lower than the prior $31 billion.

It's a decisive moment for short-term rental companies. When it comes to coronavirus-addled short-term rental cancellation and refund policies, Airbnb sided with guests while Vrbo shrugged its shoulders to soothe property managers and owners. Who has the longer memory?

Airbnb's fourth quarter financials show it is 10 times larger than Tripadvisor. They also provide clarity that Booking Holdings has a long way to go to catch Airbnb in short-term rental businesses. Airbnb's growing marketing spend in 2019 likely means that Google will have a welcome new partner in coming years.

An upside for cities like Berlin that tighten short-term rental supply through regulation is that they're less prone to price and occupancy shocks when something like the trade fair ITB Berlin cancels at the last minute.

Restructuring in itself isn't necessarily the worst thing in the world for a company, although fired employees might not see it that way. This is at least the second recent and high-profile Airbnb investment. The other, with Oyo, doesn't appear to be proceeding according to plan, either.

It's hard to know whether greater transparency will benefit or hinder these short-term rental platforms. Might lawmakers use the information as a stick to wield over the industry?