A Study of COVID-19's Impact on Airbnb London's Bookings in 2020

This report examines the significant impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on Airbnb London's business performance and booking trends during 2020. The research, based on a literature review and quantitative analysis, identifies major challenges faced by Airbnb London, including booking cancellations and decreased customer base due to lockdowns and travel restrictions. The study explores the strategies employed by Airbnb to mitigate these challenges, such as swift adaptation to the crisis, effective communication with customers, and strategic adjustments to business operations. The report provides a comprehensive overview of the research methodology, including the use of positivism philosophy, deductive approach, and questionnaire-based data collection. The findings highlight the negative impact of the pandemic on Airbnb's revenue and market valuation, while also pointing out the company's efforts to maintain customer trust and adapt to the changing market conditions. The conclusion summarizes the research's successful completion, and recommendations are provided for improving business performance during the pandemic and beyond.

The impact of COVID19 on Airbnb
London reservations for 2020
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
Main purpose of this research is to identify the impact of Covid 19 on business performance
and booking of Airbnb London during 2020. This is a main aim and achieved by researcher by
using different chapters. With the help of literature review, secondary data about the topic has
been gathered by researcher. This helped them in accomplishment of research aim and objectives
in successful manner. There are various types of research methodologies used by researcher for
attaining each objective successfully. These are positivism philosophy, deductive approach,
quantitative research, primary and secondary methods of data collection, questionnaire etc. These
methodologies helped researcher in accomplishment of all objectives effectively. Frequency
distribution analysis has been used for analysing quantitative data. Conclusion of this dissertation
is this research was successfully completed. Recommendation of this dissertation in to provided
ways for improving business performance during Covid 19.
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Contents
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY.............................................................................................................2
Contents...........................................................................................................................................3
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................4
LITERATURE REVIEW................................................................................................................7
What are the major challenges faced by Airbnb London during COVID-19?............................7
What are the ways for reducing all challenges associated with COVID-19 on reservations and
business performance of Airbnb London?...................................................................................8
What are the strategies that would be used by Airbnb London for their business performance
and booking?................................................................................................................................9
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY..................................................................................................11
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION....................................................................................................14
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................22
RECOMMENDATIONS...............................................................................................................23
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................24
APPENDIX....................................................................................................................................25
Questionnaire.............................................................................................................................25
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INTRODUCTION
Overview of the topic
Covid 19 is a pending situation and today’s it has negative impact on an individual,
organisation an industry. During Covid 19, business faced the issue of sales, high employee
turnover, decreased customer base etc. All these issues have negative impact on business
performance of an organisation. Within a research, Airbnb London is a chosen organisation.
Company operates an online marketplace for lodging, mainly homestays for vacation rentals and
also tourism activities (Adamiak, 2020). There are certain platforms that will help customers in
accessing of Airbnb London i.e. mobile app, websites etc. Airbnb founded in 2008 by Brian
Chesky, Joe Gebbia and Nathan Blecharczyk and headquartered in San Francisco, California.
Company is specialising in providence of two types of services i.e. hospitality and lodging.
Company is well-known for its quality service but during Covid 19 company faced the issue of
sales that negatively impact on its booking and business performance. In this situation,
government announced the information about Lockdown and not one are able to go outside. This
reduced the customer base and sales that impact on business performance of Airbnb in negative
manner.
Research aim
Main aim of this research is “To identify the impact of Covid 19 on business performance
and booking of Airbnb London during 2020”
Research objectives
 To identify the major challenges faced by Airbnb London during Covid 19
 To determine the ways for reducing all challenges associated with Covid 19 on
reservations and business performance of Airbnb London
 To determine the strategies that would be used by Airbnb London for improving their
business performance and booking
Research questions
 What are the major challenges of Covid 19 on Airbnb London?
 What are the effective ways for reducing all challenges associated with Covid 19 on
reservations and business performance of Airbnb London?
 What are the main strategies that would be used by Airbnb London for improving their
business performance and booking?
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Rationale of the research
Main rationale behind selecting of this topic or research is to identify the major issues of
Covid 19 on booking of Airbnb London during 2020 (Bang Nong and Ha, 2021). Covid 19
situation negatively impacted on business performance by decreasing sales, reducing customer
base, decreasing business performance etc. This research is important at personal and
professional level. This research helps investigator by increasing their research skills such as data
collection, presentation etc. This is a personal benefit of current research on investigator. At
professional level, this research improves students’ knowledge regarding the effects of Covid on
business. Therefore, this research is highly significant at personal and professional level.
Resources and action plan
Resources
There are various resources that are required by researcher for current research in
systematic manner. These are travel cost, communication, time, stationery etc. These are main
resources that are required by researcher for doing each activity of the study in successful
manner.
Action plan
It is important for researcher to do planning about the completion of research in how
many time. For this, Gantt chart will be applied by researcher. This is a time management tool
and helps investigator in completing of each activity of the project in allotted time period. This
chart includes different activities along with their starting and ending data (Boros, Dudás and
Kovalcsik, 2020). Therefore, Gantt chart of the present report is stated as below in graphical
way:
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LITERATURE REVIEW
Literature review is the chapter that is considered as significant chapters because it uses
secondary sources like books, journals, articles, newspapers to gather information for answering
the pre-defined questions of the research in a proper manner. This chapter tries to fill the gap
existing in the present information. This way research attains the objectives of investigation in a
less period of time with accurate and relevant information.
What are the major challenges faced by Airbnb London during COVID-19?
According to Bugalski (2020), in the very first month of the global pandemic Airbnb has
faced withdrawal of bookings and reservations. CEO of Brian Chesky declared that travel as we
knew it is over because now for people it is not normal to get a airplane and even people will not
be ready to go anywhere for the longer period of time as they are more concerned about their
health rather than planning things related to travel.
As the COVID-19 pandemic hit, government has issued orders to stay at home and
imposed other restrictions in the UK as well as other countries in the month of March and April.
These restrictions have made Airbnb to virtual halt. Airbnb is one of the companies that is
derailed by the sudden shut down by the government. Till COVID-19 Airbnb was sharing its
business in the economy of London as it was facilitating short term rooms on rent, basements
and house parties. Airbnb has seen downfall in its reservations and bookings for rooms, vacation
homes and many more. It has been seen in Airbnb London that their bookings declined in the
present situation in comparison to March and April 2020.
As per the opinion of Tatsi and Karamanis (2021),The sudden shutdown has created
havoc among consumers or tourists who have booked their rooms at Airbnb for their vacation
and other important work because they were well aware about the situation that it is not going to
normal so soon. So they wanted refund on all their bookings that has created pressure on Airbnb
of refunding money to their customers on the cancellations of reservations and bookings. It has
created loss of revenues of about 85% on the date of cancellation to Airbnb. This cancellation
rate has damaged the posts that a single listing who depend to count on income of Airbnb for
paying their mortgages. In addition to this entire pandemic has left multiple multi- listing hosts to
face high level of financial crisis.
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Airbnb has customers who used to travel from one place to another for their business
deals and meetings but due to pandemic Airbnb has lost all its business travelers because this
pandemic has come up with virtual calls, video conferencing and other applications so that they
can attend their meetings while sitting at their homes. This is the cost of Airbnb that it has to pay
due to COVID-19. The another challenge that Airbnb London faced was people who want to
travel are not able to travel because transportation and flight facility are not available from one
country to another for the step to reduce the spread of COVID-19. One of the major challenges
that have been faced by Airbnb London is that cancellation of all the events happening in
London, there are many people who attend these events like investors, volunteers and many more
have participated. So when these events have cancelled people who attend these events also
cancelled their bookings from Airbnb because they do not need it anymore as per the situation of
covid outbreak.
As the global travel has come to the standstill in April the giant home sharing has
expected to lose dollar 1 billion in the very first half of the year 2020 and it has also seen its
valuation of private market has severely dropped as per the people or members familiar with the
finances of the company and it has also taken steps of laying off employees so that funds could
be saved for further and future use.
What are the ways for reducing all challenges associated with COVID-19 on reservations and
business performance of Airbnb London?
According to Dolnicar (2021), the global pandemic COVID-19 crisis has hit Airbnb as
badly as the rest of hotels and hospitality industry. Airbnb has to let go a quarter of its total
workforce and the results of Airbnb in 2020 is less than half of it has made in 2019. Rather than
being wallowing in self-pity, leaders of air BNB have remained honest to their forward thinking
ability and mentality and made decision to do best in tough situation like global pandemic. There
are various ways that are used by air BNB to successfully respond to the global pandemic that is
COVID-19 outbreak.
Reacting swiftly
As per the view of Serrano, Sianes and Ariza-Montes (2020), the COVID-19 has taken
everyone by storm. As everyone was aware about the situation going on in China but none of the
government were capable enough to stop the spread of coronavirus as soon as Airbnb has started
facing problem of lockdown measures and restrictions to travel from one place to another they
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became first to adapt their offer to the COVID crisis. The Airbnb London has started
highlighting the risk of travelling in the current situation of global pandemic by different banners
on their websites so that people who are doing reservations could stop from doing it. It is also
done to make aware all those people who have booked rooms and homes at Airbnb London
through this way they focused on gaining trust of customers and tourists. Air B&B London was
well aware about that their rentals that are short-term have to compromise for the foreseeable
future and in a very short period of time they completely reformed their websites to keep
customers updated in the situation that is not normal. So Airbnb has reacted in a quite agile way
and remained to adopt new opportunities.
Effective communication
Communication is one of the major challenges that are faced by everyone in the tough
situation like COVID-19. Companies and governments both have struggled to get a right way to
communicate information to people and time. Airbnb has chosen to communicate message of
empathy and solidarity to the organizations’ progressive values that are long-standing. They have
focused on doubling down their communication by different channels so that customers will be
aware about their status of reservation and bookings because people were stressed about their
funds that they have given during their bookings pre covid period. They also set up news rooms
for their travelers and hosts for giving important information in respect of their reservation,
policies and other policies at the time of COVID-19. They kept adequate focus on keeping hosts,
guests and stakeholders up to date in respect of the pandemic situation.
What are the strategies that would be used by Airbnb London for their business performance and
booking?
According to (2021), Airbnb have top level authorities who are continuously working to
cope up with the uncertain situations like COVID-19 because this pandemic has ruined the travel
industry as people are afraid of travelling. For this there are various strategies that would be used
by Airbnb London for increasing their business performance and booking. Some of them are
explained below:
Playing the long game
Airbnb London is focusing on rethinking about its offers and giving new services in the
light of restrictions related to new travel happening around the world because these are the
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sources to get extra income and revenue and the organization very well knows that their business
model lies within the industry of travelling that is why Airbnb is preparing for post COVID-19
time. They should be prepared for implementation of global resource hub for assisting current
situation to secure their reservations and bookings in the new environment.
Identification of future trends
Airbnb are keeping their focus on identifying future trends for understanding where the
market is heading in the period of COVID-19 and their biggest strengths lie in method of data
collection that can be converted into valuable insights. Airbnb London must focus on proposing
longer stays, reassuring guests, capitalizing on last-minute reservations, providing flexibility,
respecting privacy of guests and focusing on travelling locally.
Expectations of customers
As per the view of Ma, Craig and Feng (2020), Airbnb London is focusing to understand
the expectations of travelers and customers because whole market has undergone major changes
and transformations because of COVID-19. This has made shift in the expectations of customers
so Airbnb should come with new aminities for matching the needs of customers and get more
number of bookings and reservations.
Great communication strategy
Airbnb is making sure that customer get information at right time about the base rooms
and rental homes regarding cleaning standards, safety protocols, reopening schedules, refund
policies and so on. These are the matters that play significant role in informing guests and getting
their attention back towards the company. The company should also share their struggles in the
complicated times like global pandemic for building long-lasting trust with travelers and
company to recover from that situation. For this local media, social media, emails, tourism
associations must be used to spread messages to large number of people in a very short period of
time.
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RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Research methodology is one of the important chapters of research because it assists in
achieving each and every predefined objective in a systematic way. Research methodology is
classified into different types that assist researcher in gathering and analyzing information as per
the requirement of investigation (Varaki, 2020). It is necessary for an investigator to conduct
investigation in a systematic manner so that relevant and accurate information is gathered and
analyzed. Researcher uses different kind of research methodologies for conducting research,
some of them are research approach, research philosophy, research strategies, sampling and so
on. So it has been identified that research methodology plays crucial role in collecting,
interpreting and analyzing information according to the topic of the research (Malkova and et.
al., 2020).
Research philosophy
Research philosophy is defined as a systematic process by which useful data is gathered
and evaluated in a manner of qualitative and quantitative. There are two types of research
philosophies that are positivism and interpretivism (Kelly, 2020). These two kinds are effective
in carrying out information for research but as per the requirement of current investigation
researcher has chosen positivism philosophy because it assist in collecting and carrying out
information in quantitative style. Interpretivism is not chosen because it connects and analyses
information that is present in qualitative study. Hence positivism is chosen as research
philosophy in the present investigation because of its nature that it collects and evaluates data
that is present in numerical form (Sutherland, 2020).
Research approach
Research approach refers to the process of evaluation of information for meeting the
predetermined objectives of investigation. Research approach has been classified into two types
of data analysis deductive and inductive (Savva and Souleles, 2021). These are the types of
approaches that are considered as significant while doing research in any topic but as per the
need of present research deductive research is chosen by the researcher because of the nature as
it evaluates data that is available in quantitative style and it does not take much time in
evaluating and analyzing gathered information. Inductive approach is also one of the approaches
but it is not selected as it does not support the objective of present research as it evaluates the
data that is present in qualitative manner and takes more time than deductive approach. Hence,
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deductive is selected because it measures and evaluates numerical information for attaining
objectives of the investigation.
Research strategy
This is the strategy that is the part of research methodology which helps in gathering of
information with the assistance of effective approaches of research strategies. Research strategy
has different type of approaches like case study, survey, experimental, action research, literature
review and so on. These approaches of research strategies are very effective but as per the
requirement of existing research topic, literature review and survey has been selected by
researcher as research strategy because these both types collect the quantitative information in
the given period of time (Ghosh, Bowles and Abeysiriwardhane, 2020). Literature review has
been selected because it assists researcher in collecting secondary data and survey helps in
collecting primary information without taking much time. Investigator collects relevant, accurate
and actual data in a very short period of time.
Research choice
Research choice refers to the important part of research methodology because it
facilitates researcher in collection of data by quantitative and qualitative method. Quantitative
and qualitative research choices are considered as two crucial choices of the research. According
to the present topic of the research, quantitative research choice has been selected by researcher
as research method because it assists in gathering information that is available in numerical form
and this has been collected through questionnaire (Clark and Maynard, 2020). Qualitative
research choice is another method of the research that is not right as per the objectives of the
present research and it takes longer period of time. Therefore, quantitative research choice is
selected because it does not take time and gather relevant quantitative outcomes.
Data collection
This is the method of research methodology that researcher uses for gathering
information to attain the objectives that are predetermined. Data collection has been classified
into two main parts that are primary and secondary data collection. Primary data collection refers
to the information that is gathered for the very first time through interview, questionnaire and
many more. These are the methods of primary data collection that assist in collecting information
that is important to the research (Kalavsky and et. al., 2020). Primary data collection method is
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