For the First Time Since March, Guests Book One Million Nights in One Day
At Airbnb, we believe that people’s desire to safely connect and be with one another has only grown stronger while we’ve been apart. Our business has not recovered, but we are seeing encouraging signs.
On July 8, guests booked more than 1 million nights’ worth of future stays at Airbnb listings around the world. It’s the first day in more than four months, since March 3, that the 1 million nights threshold has been reached.
~50%
July 8 bookings to destinations within 300 miles
2/3
July 8 bookings that were outside cities
<$100/night
Nightly rate of half of listings booked on July 8
Guests booking on July 8 did so in over 175 different countries and regions, including destinations in Togo, Angola, Bahrain, Svalbard and Kyrgyzstan. Nights booked skew toward domestic travel.
Most guests are not traveling far: Approximately half of these nights booked were for travel to destinations within 300 miles. Over two-thirds were for travel to destinations within 500 miles, both distances typically manageable by car. And in rural areas of the US*, hosts earned over $200 million in the month of June, an increase of more than 25 percent over what hosts in these areas earned in June 2019.
But they are looking to get away: Two-thirds of the nights booked were at destinations outside of cities.
And many are looking to do so affordably: Slightly more than half of the nights booked on July 8 were for listings costing no more than $100 per night.
Pent-up demand may be playing a role. A significant portion of nights booked were for travel beginning within 30 days: i.e., trips that will start on or before August 7.
And, over 60 percent of the nights booked were for travel by people traveling solo or with one other person. But there were over 17,000 nights booked by guests who are traveling in a group of 10 or more.
Because short-term rentals are typically entire homes, guests get more space for their money and more control over their environment, including private entrances and amenities such as kitchens and swimming pools. Combined with the availability of entire homes within driving distance for travelers and the Airbnb Enhanced Clean protocol for ensuring clean, sanitized accommodations, Airbnb’s short-term rentals are recovering because consumers see them as a safe, healthy and responsible way for guests to travel.
* Rural areas are defined as areas with fewer than 100 inhabitants per square kilometer.