Airbnb’s CEO predicted on Thursday that travelers will seek smaller cities over major cities in the future due to the coronavirus pandemic.
CEO Brian Chesky said more people will choose to drive to smaller communities and spend more time visiting family and friends than traveling to big cities for tourist attractions. He also predicted that people would make less use of air travel for business meetings, according to Reuters.
Travel has declined during the coronavirus pandemic, as home orders and social distance mandates forced people around the world to stay at home. Many Americans have refrained from seeing their family and friends for fear of spreading or contracting the virus from their loved ones.
Chesky said people “crave what has been taken from them.”
“They don’t long to see Times Square,” Chesky said during an interview at the Reuters Next conference.
At the start of the pandemic, Airbnb’s business plummeted 80 percent in nearly eight weeks, the outlet said. However, after more cities began to relax restrictions and reopen businesses, the company began to see more travelers booking homes instead of hotels.
Many of those homes were rented in small towns, as opposed to larger cities, Reuters reported.
Airbnb recently announced it will cancel reservations in Washington, DC, during President-elect’s week Joe Biden
Joe BidenCotton: Senate has no power to hold impeachment trial once Trump leaves office Marjorie Taylor Greene says she will introduce impeachment articles against Biden ICE Acting Director Steps Down Weeks After Hiring MOREinauguration after the uprising at the Capitol on January 6.
The service has banned people associated with last week’s violent uprising in the Capitol from renting on the platform.