Up until 2019 Airbnb was the cool kid on the block. Speculators were all pumped and euphoric at the thought of it going public in 2020. It was the prodigy son, even the future Elite member of the FAANG club (Facebook Amazon Apple Netflix Google ).

       Come 2020, oh boy how the tables have turned. It was valued at.

March 2017-  $31 billion

And now..

April 2020- $18 billion

Almost half its valuation just two years ago. In May 2020 the pandemic forced Airbnb to layoff 25% of its employees. If that wasn't bad enough it's facing 85% cancellations according to the research conducted by Karen Xie's (University of Denver).

The refunding policy is a mess and it's frustrating the customers and angering the hosts. Talking about the hosts, the worst hit group are these folks even worse than the laid off employees.

       The promise of sure shot profits lured novice and naive people into taking high interest loans, leases for buying multiple properties on mortgage. Now with the revenues hard to come by and no end in sight for the pandemic, the hosts are absolutely devastated and even forced to dig into their personal savings to keep the lights on. 

        They are forced to find innovative ways to turn a profit. Some are falling back onto the usual discount mechanism but others are finding new ways such as starting to rent out the entire properties instead of renting individual rooms and surprisingly it is working for many.

         The upcoming months are going to be very difficult for the entire Airbnb ecosystem or any homestays around the world for that matter. We just hope that things get better and businesses  start flourishing again.