Airbnb CEO Says Wuhan Virus Will Fundamentally Transform Domestic Travel

Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, said to Reuters on January 14, 2021 that domestic travel patterns will not revert to pre-Wuhan virus pandemic standards.

In a Zoom call with Jonathan Weber, the global technology editor for Reuters, Chesky said that business travel will move towards leisure travel due to the fact that software like Zoom facilitates teleconferencing at unprecedented rates. 

Furthermore, Chesky speculates that people won’t be visiting America’s largest cities as much as before, nor will they stay at crowded hotels. Instead, he believes that “many people will travel by car – some will travel by plane – and they’re going to travel to thousands of smaller communities. And many of these communities are going to be smaller cities and or even rural areas.” 

Additionally, the Airbnb CEO notes that “farm stays are huge right now” and that national parks travel will become a major trend among travelers in the upcoming months. The latter will grow, in Chesky’s view, because most Americans have not visited such parks.

According to an Airbnb survey, 54% of Americans have plans of traveling in 2021 or they’re in the process of planning out their trips for the summer. Chesky asserted that travelers are “yearning for what was taken away from them.” He added, “they’re not yearning to see Times Square. What they are yearning to do is to see their friends and their families they have not seen in a long time.”

Tyler Durden of ZeroHedge raised an interesting point about this change in Americans’ travel patterns:

If Chesky is right about the significant travel shift, the hotel industry could be slated for a massive wave of bankruptcies and or consolidation to a degree never before seen.  

Regardless, Americans are getting tired of the Wuhan virus lockdowns. Millions of Americans have had their freedoms infringed upon thanks to politicians who want to exploit a generalized crisis for their own gain. 

If Republicans were smart, they would be unapologetically campaigning for their states to be reopened. Americans want to go back to their normal lives and engage in activities such as travel, which the political class has deprived them of.