Airbnb's quarterly results are likely to show the pandemic may have helped the home rental company lure leisure travelers away from big hotels during the global travel collapse of 2020.
Weary of being locked up in their homes for months, travelers hit the road and booked homes and cottages on Airbnb, while avoiding flights and downtown hotels, analysts said.Airbnb accounted for 18per cent of the total U.S. lodging revenue in 2020, up from 11.5per cent in 2019, data from hotel analytics provider STR and vacation rental data company AirDNA showed.
In 2019, about 90per cent of Airbnb's bookings came from leisure travels compared with about 20per cent-30per cent for large hotels chains, including Marriott and Hilton, that rely on business travel to grow their profits. Lane said with mass vaccinations later in the year, the share of alternative accommodations including Airbnb will drop before continuing to grow at 2per cent-3per cent per year once normal travel patterns return.* The San Francisco-based company is expected to report gross bookings of US$23.10 billion in 2020, down from about US$38 billion a year earlier, according to the mean estimate of 12 analysts according to Refinitiv; gross bookings are seen rising by 50per cent in 2021.