Airbnb boss: 'Cornwall is now more popular than London'
The way we think about travel, holidays and accommodation is changing as societies adjust to the pandemic, says Airbnb chief executive, Brian Chesky.
It is a far cry from the company's origins in the late 2000s, when it focused on renting out spare rooms in cities, mainly to individuals.
Airbnb was hit hard by Covid last spring, shedding a quarter of its workforce. Throughout 2020 it experienced booking levels lower than 2019.
But despite an unprecedented drop in international travel, people still booked accommodation for domestic holidays when local lockdowns eased.
So property rental firms like Airbnb, whose revenues grew by 5% in the first quarter of 2021, were not as badly hit as airlines or package holiday operators.
"Rural nights booked in the UK used to be a quarter of our bookings, they're now half," Mr Chesky tells the BBC.
Globally, domestic bookings went up from 50% in January 2020 to 80% in 2021, according to Airbnb's newly released report, Travel & Living, May 2021.
