To answer the Question “Should I Buy AirBnB Shares?” is far from easy to unpick, From humble beginings of renting out Air Mattresses in an apartment block to make up a rent dollarsshortfall the company floated on Thursday to a staggering $31 Billion in the middle of a Global Pandemic whilst much of the travel industry including the airlines on which its business model depends are currently floundering in a state of uncertainty.
Our Journey
Our personal perspective has been one of success, We have been with AirBnB for the last 3 years with our Farm Stay offering Hot Tub Holidays on our working farm in rural Warwickshire. We recently gained Super Host Status which is based on our Guest communication and feedback.
Background Detail
During Covid-19 Air BnB communicated with both us and our guests to rearrange bookings and refund guests where this was not viable. This sadly for the industry was not the case in all circumstances with other third-party agents.
AirBnB run a tight online platform, they hold all guest payments only releasing them to the owner after the guest has checked in, payments are collected in advance of the holiday and can often be 6 months in advance of the booking. A booking fee is paid by the traveller and a commission is charged to the host, Vat is then applied to both, ultimately the traveller will pay both for the privilege of using the site, typically this will result in a 20% increase in the cost of the booking.
Prior to floating full time AirBnB staff were cut by 25% and unlike any large hotel chain there are very few liabilities in terms of infrastructure, so overheads will be mainly in SEO, Advertising and Staffing.
All communication between the host and guest is screened to remove email, telephone numbers, website links to prevent the traveller booking direct, thus bypassing the AirBnB fe generation machine.
A further cost to the local economy is non of this additional revenue comes back into the host country.
The savvy traveller will, of course, find the host through the AirBnB platform and book direct with the host.
Our 2020 revenue for our Hot Tub Holidays significantly rose during 2020 with travellers looking for a UK Staycation post lockdown, and this success was down to AirBnB matching guest holiday requirements with our availability. At one point Air BnB held £22,000 of advanced guest bookings for our farm, normally this would be working capital for us but instead lay in AirBnB cloud storage till the traveller checked in with us.
In conclusion, those investors who purchased options prior to flotation have seen a significant increase in their investment, yes AirBnB going forward will be around for some time to come, but be aware of market overvaluation of a company with limited assets operating in a reduced hospitality Market post COVID-19.
For us AirBnB opens up a worldwide platform reaching millions of potential travellers, so not listing with AirBnB would be detrimental to our business. If however after reading this post you would like to save money and book directly we can assure you of a Warm Welcome with a stay at Oaks Barn Farm, you can do so through the following link: Contact Oaks Barn Farm
Thank you for reading
