Airbnb’s CEO predicted on Thursday that in the future travelers will visit smaller towns across large cities due to the coronavirus pandemic.
CEO Brian Chesky said more people decide to drive to smaller communities and spend more time with family and friends than traveling to big cities to visit tourism. According to Reuters, he also predicted that people would use fewer travel flights for business meetings.
Travel declined during the coronavirus pandemic as homelessness and social alienation forced people around the world to stay in their homes. Many Americans have refrained from seeing their families and friends for fear of spreading or contracting the virus to their loved ones.
Chesky said people ‘long for what has been taken away from them’.
“They do not feel like seeing Times Square,” Chesky said during an interview at the Reuters Next conference. “What they long for is to see their friends and their families that they have not seen in a long time.”
At the start of the pandemic, Airbnb’s business fell by 80 percent, according to nearly eight weeks. However, after more cities began easing restrictions and reopening businesses, the company began to see more travelers booking homes above hotels.
Many of the rents were in small towns as opposed to larger cities, Reuters reported.
Airbnb recently announced that it will cancel the discussions in Washington, DC, during election week Joe Biden
Joe BidenCotton: Senate has no authority to hold criminal trial once Trump leaves office.inauguration following the uprising at the Capitol on 6 January.
The service banned people connected to the violent riot at the Capitol last week from renting on the platform.