Airbnb will shut down in China amid repeated Covid lockdowns
Airbnb is indefinitely closing its business inside China, as the country’s zero-Covid policy, lockdown and travel restrictions continue.
On Tuesday, Airbnb told its China-based users that it would stop taking all bookings for accommodation and experiences in China starting July 30. The ability to make bookings for dates beyond July 29 was suspended on Tuesday morning, according to screenshots of an Airbnb notice shared on Chinese social media. The Guardian’s attempt to make a booking from outside China after that date generated an error message.
According to a source familiar with the decision, who confirmed the shutdown, Airbnb’s domestic business in China is suffering under China’s pandemic restrictions, with no sign that officials are moving toward coexistence with the virus or moving across its borders. intend to open.
As a wave of omicron cases spread across China, the government doubled down on its policy to eliminate COVID-19. Major cities, including Shanghai and Beijing, have been subject to city-wide or local lockdowns, and there are widespread travel restrictions between cities and provinces.
The housing provider has operated inside China since 2016 with home listings across the country. About 25 million guests booked in that time, according to the company, but it is expensive and complex to operate and faces strong local competition. The source told the Guardian that the China-based accounts for about 1% of revenue globally, and that Covid-19 has worsened the issues and exacerbated their impact.
The Chinese media outlet, Phoenix News, reported that Airbnb will maintain an office in Beijing with “hundreds” of employees.
The company declined to comment further on the record.
The news became a trending topic on China’s Weibo social media platform on Tuesday, with many comments focused on how little Airbnb’s market share was even before the pandemic.
Chinese residents face heavy restrictions on international travel, which has hit the global tourism industry. Between 2010 and 2019, the number of Chinese tourists traveling abroad nearly tripled to 155 million.
But as the rest of the world reopens, Airbnb claims it reached a record high number of bookings, with over 102 million bookings for accommodations and experiences in the first quarter of this year. “Guests are booking more than ever before,” Airbnb said in a letter to shareholders. “Looking ahead, we see strong sustained stagnant demand.”
The company said that the trend of booking people away from urban areas and relatively closer to home, but guests were also returning to cities and traveling across the border.
Xiaoqian Zhu . Additional reporting by
