London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Oct 30, 2025

Airbnb boss: 'Cornwall's more popular than London'

Airbnb boss: 'Cornwall's more popular than London'

The way we think about travel, holidays and accommodation is changing as societies adjust to the pandemic, says Airbnb chief executive, Brian Chesky.

"Everyone is going to live a bit differently because they have more flexibility and are less anchored to the city."

People are choosing longer lets in large houses, often in rural areas, argues Airbnb.

"The line between travelling and [just] living is blurring," Mr Chesky says.

It is a far cry from the company's origins in the late 2000s, when it focused on renting out spare rooms in cities, mainly to individuals.

Solo travellers or couples on city breaks used to be a mainstay for the company

Airbnb was hit hard by Covid last spring, shedding a quarter of its workforce. Throughout 2020 it experienced booking levels lower than 2019.

But despite an unprecedented drop in international travel, people still booked accommodation for domestic holidays when local lockdowns eased.

So property rental firms like Airbnb, whose revenues grew by 5% in the first quarter of 2021, were not as badly hit as airlines or package holiday operators.

However, its figures now reveal a big change in customer behaviour.

"Rural nights booked in the UK used to be a quarter of our bookings, they're now half," Mr Chesky tells the BBC.

Cornwall is the country's most-booked summer location in 2021, a title previously held by London.

Globally, domestic bookings went up from 50% in January 2020 to 80% in 2021, according to Airbnb's newly released report, Travel & Living, May 2021.

Another long-term change is becoming evident, according to Mr Chesky. He believes people are increasingly using Airbnb for remote working opportunities, rather than just holidays. They crave a change of scene, perhaps, rather than just a short, sharp break from the nine-to-five.

There has been a rise in families booking whole houses - will this change be permanent?

He cites one statistic in particular: the proportion of stays longer than 28 nights on Airbnb, globally, rose from 14% in 2019 to 24% in the first three months of 2021.

Remote working is increasingly discussed in customer review and feedback, according to Airbnb's report.

The idea might now appeal to people other than just millennial, digital nomads with few personal responsibilities, he says. "When I was a kid I went to school 180 days a year, that's about 180 days I wasn't in school."

With more companies adopting flexible work policies, he thinks, it will become common for families to relocate for holiday periods, subsidising it by renting their own home.

He also thinks three-day weekend breaks will become more popular, with all these factors underwriting "a travel rebound".

"Another whole new segment of our business is also people [who are] just living on Airbnb," says Mr Chesky. "Of the people living on Airbnb on a monthly basis, about 11% of them are living nomadically, they don't even have homes."

However, whether remote working and nomadic living emerge as new frontiers in the sharing economy of private homes, Airbnb is facing increasingly stiff competition in the space it pioneered.

New rivals include Vrbo and Holidu, while established platforms like booking.com and Tripadvisor have also diversified to offer a similar proposition.

Another perennial threat to the company is regulation.

Where Airbnb has contributed to influxes of tourists that local communities struggle to cope with, governments have proposed curbs like tourist taxes and new rules on gaining permission for private holiday rentals.

The Scottish government has proposed giving councils power to enact such measures, to protect areas like Edinburgh's Old Town and the Isle of Skye.

Airbnb is used to dealing with this issue and has thousands of agreements already in place with local and national governments, says Mr Chesky.

Airbnb laid off a quarter of its staff when the pandemic first hit.

This was a "turning point" for the firm, ultimately allowing it to refocus on its core business, says Mr Chesky. But he adds that letting people go by Zoom was the hardest thing he has had to do since becoming CEO: "You couldn't even say goodbye".

Now he hopes the changes that Airbnb is witnessing in user behaviour will help to underwrite "the biggest travel rebound in a century". His company is already hiring again and will continue to do so, he says.

Airbnb's new search functionality is designed for people looking outside traditional, fixed holiday periods

However, some industry experts are not convinced about a rebound.

"After the pandemic when people have the option to see friends, be part of an IRL [In Real Life] community again, will they want to live as modern bedouins?" wonders Sarah Kunst, general partner at Cleo Capital.

"Remote work and digital nomadism has been around for over a decade and even single, young people with money have been slow to fully embrace it long-term.

"Certainly people seem eager to make up for lost time - reunions, weddings, long overdue vacations - but that will likely last? The question is will 2022 travel look more like 2019 or surpass it? We just don't know yet."

Airbnb's three co-founders could never have imagined the impact their business idea would have on cities around the world, says Mr Chesky. Now he thinks the pandemic may usher in another change, as remote working pushes people who can afford it to rural areas and un-needed city shops are converted to residential units.

"Cities are going to go through a renaissance," he thinks, "prices may come down and a whole bunch of young people will move in and remake those cities in their own image."


Nathan Blecharczyk: "We called it Airbed and Breakfast"


Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×