Airbnb was one of the hardest hit tech companies by the pandemic. The company's revenue dropped by 67 percent in spring 2020 due to a flurry of cancellations. It had fired 25% of its employees by May. The days of travel are over, CEO Brian Chesky stated grimly in May. And it's not coming back.Like many other companies, the fate of this company was dependent on the ability of the world to manage Covid-19. Its success could be seen as a sign of progress towards normal activities such as vacations, or a pandemic bellwether. There is good news in that regard: Airbnb announced on Thursday that its Q2 2020 revenue was up 300 percent and that it was approximately 10 percent more than Q2 2019. Even with restrictions on international travel, overall bookings have also returned to pre-pandemic levels. Other high-water marks were also attained by the surge in summer travel: Airbnb had its most booked quarter ever, Saturday was the best day on the site since the pandemic, with over 4 million people staying in Airbnbs all around the globe.Millions of people are yearning for travel after months of being at home. Chesky was calling in from an Airbnb in Italy. We can now definitively state that there is a travel rebound.While the summer may have brought travel back to pre-pandemic levels of its previous self, the future is less certain due to the rise in the Delta variant. Airbnb sent a letter to shareholders stating that it expected that the Delta variant would impact bookings and cancellations. This would make the second half of 2018 more volatile than the first. However, the company still predicted that Q3 would be its highest quarterly revenue ever.Airbnb's wager is that even though travel may not appear as it did in 2019, there will still be ways to make it happen. Despite the fact that international travel fell in 2020, people still booked weekends trips to destinations within driving distance. Before the pandemic, most people used a website for travel like Airbnb to find a place and set dates. Airbnb claims that 40% of its guests now use flexible dates and location search to book their accommodation. This may be because so many people are able to work remotely. Longer stays are becoming more popular. Airbnb reported that 25% of its bookings were for month-long stays in its Q1 earnings. In 2019, bookings for stays over a month accounted only 14% of all bookings. This trend is expected to continue throughout the summer and will probably continue as long as people are able to work remotely.These changes in behavior and the summer of almost normal travel have helped other companies in this sector. Turo, an Airbnb for cars, filed last week to go public. Vacasa, which is a platform to manage vacation rentals, will also be going public via SPAC. After a record low in the year of the pandemic, VC funding for tourism and travel startups has rebounded. Crunchbase data shows that investors spent $11.1 million on 1,125 deals in this sector in 2019, according to Crunchbase. Crunchbase data shows that this dropped to $4.8billion and 629 deals in 2020. The situation is expected to rebound in 2021 with 346 deals and $6.1 million in funding.It is not known how long the travel rebound can last. This optimistic outlook may be clouded by coronavirus variants that continue to spread in certain regions and have prompted new restrictions in some areas. Dave Stephenson, Airbnb's chief financial officer, stated that bookings would be lower in Q3 than Q2. While summer travel slows down at this time of the year, rising coronavirus cases have also affected some travelers' travel plans. Southwest Airlines is already making more optimistic predictions than they did earlier in the summer.Airbnb's shareholder letter noted that the company's bottom line could be affected by vaccination progress, new variants containment, and travel restrictions. Airbnb learned one thing last year: It was to be more efficient. This quarter, its losses were $68 million, down from $576 million last. These lessons may prove useful if the road ahead is even more difficult.Here are more great WIRED stories
