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Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

theguardian.com

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Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#41

Post by paxys »

FireBeyond wrote: post #39
paxys wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you just need a room for the night, sure, of course you should book a hotel. Airbnb never made sense in that case to begin with. For a slightly higher price, however, Airbnb gets you a 1 bedroom apartment (or 2-4 rooms for an entire group) plus a living room, functioning kitchen, multiple bathrooms, and depending on the property a private patio, pool etc. No hotel can compete with that.

> If you just need a room for the night, sure, of course you should book a hotel. Airbnb never made sense in that case to begin with. That was literally the origin story and first iteration. "Crash on someone's couch or in their spare bedroom."

People still put spare rooms in their house on Airbnb, and you can still book them. It will be a lot cheaper than a hotel. But that's not what anyone really means when they are talking about Airbnb anymore. The vast majority are looking for a private space.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#42

Post by paxys »

jairuhme wrote: post #40

I'll rehash some of the complaints others have mentioned. Unless its a larger group, it really doesn't make sense to use vs. a hotel. Even if price is constant, there's just a bit more friction with AirBnB. Sometimes its easy, but other times you're trying to find the code that you have to enter for the key. Then I have to find the rules for the property to make sure I cleaned it according to their standards (while p…

The big difference for me is that Airbnbs have kitchens. Any trip more than 1-2 days in length is greatly improved when I can buy basic groceries and cook rather than have to eat every single meal at a restaurant. Because of that the overall cost works out to be cheaper as well.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#43

Post by FireBeyond »

bamboozled wrote: post #13
webaholic wrote: post #2

With all the hidden fees and exorbitant cleaning fees, I think it is much cheaper to book a hotel than an airbnb nowadays. No wonder demand is going down.

It's like tech people have to relearn why we had age old things in the first place. We're starting to workout why hotels are a good idea now. I saw Elon Musk questioning why we have medical regulations the other day, he was saying that it "slows down innovation" and so he thinks medical regulation should be abolished. He did the same for content moderation on his platform. Well I don't agree that regulations stifle i…

I think it'd be hilarious if it wasn't so on-brand for Elon that he has a company that is designing brain-computer interfaces as an implant and while, to be clear, Neuralink obviously has medical and research leadership, not one of them is flagged on the company's website. Their "company" section is literally Blog and Careers.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#44

Post by paxys »

$2.75B revenue, up 11% YoY. $555M net income (20% margin). $1B free cash flow. $75B market cap (after the dip).

Yes they may have missed analyst expectations, but AirBnb is still a very solid business. Not on its last legs as everyone here seems to be convinced.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#45

Post by Tiktaalik »

tangoman wrote: post #36
Tiktaalik wrote: post #27

British Columbia has effectively banned whole house Airbnb rentals Province wide, and it's no longer possible to buy a condo and rent it out 24/7 as if it was a hotel.* Have any other States enacted rules this severe? Are any about to? Various cities have enacted Airbnb regulations, but it's at the State/Provincial level where enforcement would start to have real teeth and Airbnb would genuinely start to be in troubl…

This law looks nice on paper, but in practice is another thing. I don't know how the enforcement it's done, but anecdotally a friend moved from Calgary to Vancouver for work and the company rented him an Airbnb apartment, the whole place for him, even the building have signs that the Strata forbids Airbnb.

It's pretty much a brand new law (as of May 1) so we're yet to see what the level of enforcement is.

Vancouver has had its own Airbnb bylaws (that the Provincial rules crib from) for years but bylaws are easily ignored and Vancouver's enforcement ability was very low. No real surprise to hear that someone in Vancouver was breaking the Vancouver Airbnb bylaws.

The Province does have much more ability to enforce the law that a city. So will be interesting to see.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#46

Post by phs318u »

nvy wrote: post #19
bamboozled wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's like tech people have to relearn why we had age old things in the first place. We're starting to workout why hotels are a good idea now. I saw Elon Musk questioning why we have medical regulations the other day, he was saying that it "slows down innovation" and so he thinks medical regulation should be abolished. He did the same for content moderation on his platform. Well I don't agree that regulations stifle i…

>I saw Elon Musk questioning why we have medical regulations the other day, he was saying that it "slows down innovation" and so he thinks medical regulation should be abolished Is he just posturing for his fans? I see so many statements of this nature from him and I just can't believe that a person that successful can be so monumentally stupid.

> I see so many statements of this nature from him and I just can't believe that a person that successful can be so monumentally stupid.

Clearly, you're not a student of history then. The trope of folks being good at one thing and believing that this can be extrapolated to other things is based on an almost infinite history of humans doing this exact thing, from politicians, business leaders, engineers, scientists, artists and just ordinary folks. When you couple this with the amplifying effects of having the money to surround yourself with 'yes'-folks that continuously reinforce your 'brilliance', and having the power that results in politicians kowtowing to you, then it is incredibly difficult to break out of that supreme belief in your own genius. It is literally a trap as old as humanity.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#47

Post by IG_Semmelweiss »

Imoortant data point: NYC anti-airbnb law came into effect 9 months ago[1] This has destroyed airbnb listings in nyc to the joy of hotels everywhere. I believe bookings made before the law came to be survived, so they stayed on the books as revenue, assuming a lead time of avg 6 months, you'd exoect the hit to be happening in Q2-Q3 of thia year.

There are also regulations that came online ij all of BC and some other cities in CAN as well.

If this is happening in more major markets, maybe that's the reason for the fall?

[1] https://slate.com/business/2023/09/new-york-city-airbnb-new-...

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#48

Post by phs318u »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #30
jpalawaga wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see many, many tech people take an extremely simple position on a topic contrary to general knowledge. Then they say something like 'I believe in strongly held beliefs, held weakly'. I'm so bored of debating people with opinions on things they've spent zero time researching or even thinking about. Just say you don't know. It's okay.

this is like complaining about small talk. small talk is meant to draw people in. same with saying outrageous things. no one wants to chat in depth immediately and saying wild things draws a crowd. no one is going to talk with you if you're drawing out all the nuance of medical regulation (nearly an 5k essay to broach) with nuance.

> no one is going to talk with you if you're drawing out all the nuance of medical regulation

Then why should anyone talk with you about it? What would be the point?

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#49

Post by aaronharnly »

paxys wrote: post #42
jairuhme wrote: post #40

I'll rehash some of the complaints others have mentioned. Unless its a larger group, it really doesn't make sense to use vs. a hotel. Even if price is constant, there's just a bit more friction with AirBnB. Sometimes its easy, but other times you're trying to find the code that you have to enter for the key. Then I have to find the rules for the property to make sure I cleaned it according to their standards (while p…

The big difference for me is that Airbnbs have kitchens. Any trip more than 1-2 days in length is greatly improved when I can buy basic groceries and cook rather than have to eat every single meal at a restaurant. Because of that the overall cost works out to be cheaper as well.

Traveling with small kids, having a kitchen makes the difference between being able to actually feed the family vs scraping together insane combinations of whatever sliver of restaurant meals the kids can eat and packaged food.

Re: Airbnb shares drop 12% as company flags weakening US demand

#50

Post by jairuhme »

paxys wrote: post #42
jairuhme wrote: post #40

I'll rehash some of the complaints others have mentioned. Unless its a larger group, it really doesn't make sense to use vs. a hotel. Even if price is constant, there's just a bit more friction with AirBnB. Sometimes its easy, but other times you're trying to find the code that you have to enter for the key. Then I have to find the rules for the property to make sure I cleaned it according to their standards (while p…

The big difference for me is that Airbnbs have kitchens. Any trip more than 1-2 days in length is greatly improved when I can buy basic groceries and cook rather than have to eat every single meal at a restaurant. Because of that the overall cost works out to be cheaper as well.

That's a fair point. But for me, thats more friction. Now when I get to my destination, I also have to go grocery shopping and then spend even more time cooking and cleaning the dishes after. Personally, if I am going somewhere new, I'd prefer to spend a bit more money to not do all of the the tiring things I have to do at home so I can spend that time actually exploring. I will add, I don't have kids and can see how my viewpoint may change when they do come into the picture
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