Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by geronb 2141 days ago
Not really. Airbnb has fully recovered, same as VRBO (which is growing about 60% YoY) and having proven that the business has been resilient even during the pandemic can be a good story for the IPO. https://www.financial-world.org/news/news/business/6074/cali...
1 comments

> Airbnb has fully recovered

That just makes no sense given record unemployment and virus still very much prevalent! Travel and tourism are still significantly below average across the globe.

Re: VRBO... this quote "One of Airbnb's biggest competitors is Vrbo, owned by Expedia Group. The company doesn't break out Vrbo's individual results, but noted it returned to bookings growth in June." I believe is plainly misleading. I'd suggest that the "growth in June" is simply compared to the 80-90% decline from the spring's total lockdown, and likely only a 10-20% increase from that bottom.

The Airbnb report celebrating 1M bookings worldwide is still significantly below the norm (i.e. probably around 10% - tho I can't find clear stats) especially for the summer - so it hasn't "fully recovered" by a long shot.

The recovery is very surprising and counterintuitive so you are right to be skeptical.

Here's some additional datapoints:

- Similarweb traffic: VRBO traffic is above February traffic levels https://www.similarweb.com/website/vrbo.com/

- Airbnb traffic shows a V shaped recovery https://www.similarweb.com/website/airbnb.com/#overview

- VRBO drives Expedia group recovery https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/news/2020/07/07/expedia-g...

- Airbnb shows unexpected growth https://fortune.com/2020/06/30/airbnbceo-brian-chesky-bookin...

- May article showing early signs of V-shaped recovery https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/airbnb-booking-data...

- "Airbnb saw more nights booked for U.S. listings between May 17 and June 3 than the same period in 2019, and a similar boost in domestic travel globally." https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-08-12/airbnb-re...