| Airbnb is shutting its operations in China, choosing to focus instead on outbound Chinese tourism as the country continues its aggressive approach to containing COVID-19.will stop offering rental homes and experiences in the country this northerm hemisphere summer, according to a person familiar with the matter.But it will still maintain a presence in China with an office in Beijing as the company expects outbound tourism to improve when restrictions loosen.
“China is primarily an outbound business,” Airbnb chief executive Brian Chesky said on the company’s first-quarter earnings call earlier this month. “People go to China, but primarily they travel to China, and they go to other communities, especially around Asia.”At an event in New York earlier in May, Mr Chesky said he expects the Asia region to recover in 2023., with the government placing entire cities on lockdown for weeks at a time.
The zero-tolerance approach has prompted criticism from businesses, fuelled public frustration and has put Beijing’s ambitious full-year growth target of around 5.5 per cent further out of reach. In a regulatory filing in February, the company said it would continue to incur “significant expenses” to operate in China and may not be able to achieve profitability in the country.“These factors, combined with sentiment of the workforce in China, and China’s policy towards foreign direct investment may particularly impact our operations in China,” according to the report.