The impact of the new crown epidemic has caused Airbnb, the world's largest shared accommodation platform, to suddenly fall into the storm of "collapse".
"We built airbnb in 12 years and almost lost it all in 4-6 weeks." A few days ago, Chesky, as the co-founder and CEO of Airbnb, spoke in an interview with CNBC, which triggered a lot of speculation about the difficulties of its platform operation.
Although Airbnb officials have published rumors, they still can't hide the fact that it is in trouble. The stranding of the listing plan, the decline in valuations by nearly 20%, the layoff of a quarter of its employees, and the suspension of marketing investment all highlight Airbnb's difficult situation.
The Chinese apprentices of Airbnb such as Tujia and Little Pig are also unhappy, and after years of tortuous development process such as burning money, shutting down, selling themselves, and difficult to comply with legal compliance, the platforms that have survived have been brought into a new round of "hard days" by the epidemic.
The difference is that the crisis has no reference to the "teacher", and the apprentices need to find their own solutions.
The C2C of shared accommodation
The Airbnb and the entire shared accommodation C2C (Connecting Individual Hosts with Individual Residents) model began in 2007. At that time, Brian Chesky, a post-80s in New York, went to San Francisco with his friends to start a business, but eventually he almost lived on the street because he could not pay the rent.
At such a juncture, Chesky suddenly came up with the idea of "vacating the living room for tourists to live, and then using the accommodation fee paid by tourists to pay rent", which is also the prototype of the shared accommodation model represented by Airbnb.
In 2008, Chesky made the idea a business, and Airbnb came out. In 2017, Airbnb's valuation stood at a high of $31 billion, far exceeding the $21.8 billion market value of the global hotel giant Hilton at that time. To date, Airbnb has grown into a co-living big mac with 7 million listings in 191 countries.
"Airbnb's success in overseas markets can be achieved domestically," chinese shared-room track entrepreneurs once believed in.
In the past 10 years, domestic shared accommodation platforms such as Airi Rent, Piglet, Tujia, Ant, and Zhubaijia have emerged against Airbnb's C2C model.
Because the platforms are basically and transplanted Airbnb's shared accommodation model, some even directly raised the "Chinese version of Airbnb" banner, and the outside world is also commonly referred to as Airbnb's Chinese apprentices.
Like other Internet tracks, the original lively multi-party scuffle, in the end only a few insisted.
In 2013, after burning out tens of millions of dollars in financing, Airi Rent was shut down due to a break in the capital chain; in 2016, 58's ant short-term rental sold Toujia, and in the same year Tujia joined the Ctrip camp; in 2018, Zhubaijia, once known as the "first share of shared accommodation", was delisted from the New Third Board in the case of years of huge losses and huge debts, and the founder also suddenly disappeared, leaving a chicken feather.
As a platform for matching transactions, shared accommodation enterprises need to invest both in the resource side of the landlord and the user traffic, and expand the platform listings while also taking into account the growth of user traffic. At the same time, as a new thing, the education and stimulation of the consumer market is also the part that requires long-term investment in the platform, and burning money is almost inevitable.
In addition to the difficulties in business operation and capital, external legal supervision is a more critical factor restricting the development of the C2C model of shared accommodation.
A short-term rental owner in Chengdu who had been detained by the public security organs had raised questions about his punishment on the local government website.
In this regard, the official reply of the People's Government of Qingyang District of Chengdu City said that the landlord's use of the houses in the urban living quarters to make short-term rental profits was to operate the hotel without a license and without a license, which violated the relevant regulations of the public security management of the hotel industry, and there were hidden dangers in all aspects such as public security and fire protection.
The Qingyang District Government further stated that the public security organs investigated and dealt with the unauthorized operation of hotels without public security permits in accordance with article 54 of the Law of the People's Republic of China on Public Security Administration Penalties, which is in accordance with national laws and regulations.
In recent years, shanghai, Fujian, Guangzhou and other provinces and cities across the country have seen news reports of landlords being detained by public security organs for operating shared accommodation business.
At present, the C2C model of shared accommodation is still in the gray area of legal supervision, and the real sense of laws and regulations has not yet emerged, and only the industry self-discipline standard issued by the Sharing Economy Research Center of the State Information Center in 2018 - "Shared Accommodation Service Specification".
In fact, Uber and Airbnb, the two star companies of the global sharing economy, are often punished or punished for violating the laws and regulations of different countries and regions, and compliance has always been a key issue to be broken through in the global market.
Accelerate the shift to a diversified homestay market
The roof leak coincided with overnight rain, and the sudden outbreak of the new crown epidemic brought a more severe blow to the domestic shared accommodation C2C market.
"The current order volume is less than 30% of the same period last year." Li Di, the operator of shared accommodation and the founder of Miyasu Culture Communication Co., Ltd., told ZAKER News that the strengthening of urban communities during the special period of the epidemic has almost brought the shared accommodation business to a halt. Many short-term rental owners have begun to "run" and leave the market after losing their order income.
The relevant person in charge of the Tujia platform also told ZAKER News that the severe situation of the epidemic has sharply reduced the willingness of tourists to travel, which has also led to the empty window period of forced closure of shared accommodation operators, and the entire industrial chain will face a huge loss crisis.
Under multiple blows, the C2C model represented by Airbnb is facing huge challenges, which has also accelerated the development and transformation of domestic shared accommodation platforms.
Tujia said that since the outbreak of the epidemic, accommodation environment, health and safety, epidemic prevention measures, etc. have become the focus of attention of shared accommodation users, and the urban short-term rental business has been greatly impacted. However, country houses are more popular due to factors such as larger per capita size, smaller occupancy, greater privacy and security, ushering in market growth.
Tujia data shows that with the current stabilization of the domestic epidemic and the stimulation of tourism consumption in many places, the platform order volume during the Dragon Boat Festival has recovered to the level of 65% in the same period last year.
Tujia also said that the emphasis on safety, quality, personalization, privacy and other aspects will become a long-term trend in the consumption demand of shared accommodation users, which also means that decentralized, personalized and high-quality homestays will usher in greater development space in the future.
"The country house is our more important direction in the second half of the year, and we will focus on establishing a full set of products, content, operations and marketing." The relevant person in charge of the piggy platform also told ZAKER News that the follow-up piglet will cooperate with Fliggy and local governments to integrate and promote destination homestays, and deepen strategic cooperation with resource parties such as country houses and brand homestays around the world.
In fact, this is not a layout shift that only existed during the epidemic.
In recent years, platforms such as Tujia and Xiaopig have gradually stopped deliberately emphasizing the C2C shared accommodation model, but have continuously exerted efforts to continuously develop the traditional offline homestay, inn, short-term rental apartment, farm stay, villa rental market, and cover these already legal and compliant accommodation formats online, and the epidemic has further accelerated such an industry trend.
In this regard, Tujia stressed that the impact and changes of the epidemic on the tourism industry have forced travel enterprises to adjust their thinking and adapt to changes to complete the business turn, and if they are still solidified, they may be eliminated by the market.
At a macro level, it's not just shared accommodation that's abandoning the traditional C2C model, it's almost the entire domestic sharing economy.
For example, after shared travel becomes "online ride-hailing", drivers and passengers are no longer simply sharing idle vehicles, but have transformed into professional commercial services. The time-sharing rental model behind the once-hot concepts of sharing bicycles, sharing umbrellas, and sharing charging treasures has nothing to do with the traditional C2C model.
Looking back at the shared accommodation market, Tujia and Piglet continue to accelerate their turn, deepen the layout strategy of the diversified homestay market, and continue to dilute their "Airbnb apprentice" label, and the domestic shared accommodation market is also moving towards a completely different development direction.