If a parent the boy or the girl comes up with a
community manager
,
content creator
, consultant or directly entrepreneur, by searching the Internet you will be able to understand what your child does ... more or less. And that's already a huge advantage that Nathan Blecharczyk's parents didn't have. This American, a computer scientist graduated from Harvard, got into an unusual project that basically consisted of offering strangers an inflatable bed to sleep in their own living room. That happened in 2007. “My father asked me things like 'how long are you going to continue doing what you do?' The funny thing is, I was wondering even after Airbnb was already successful, back in 2011. ″ Just the year the company raised more than $ 100 million.
Screenshot of the interview with Nathan Blecharczyk where you can see a cartoon of him with his partners and a box of cereals among decorations and books on a wooden shelf.
Blecharczyk, who in 2021 has reached the category of billionaire, comments on the anecdote in a video call from his office.
It could be very similar to the one that a large part of the planet had to set up at home when the pandemic arrived, if it were not for the fact that, in this, the interior design work has been done precisely the opposite of the rest: instead of hiding everything that could divert attention, detract from professionalism or enliven
voyeurism
in an
online
meeting
, such as family photos, diplomas or personal belongings, has been emphasized here. Hanging to his left is a cartoon showing him up in a tree house with his partners Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia, who together founded Airbnb when they were in their twenties. And to the right, on a solid wood shelf, among ornaments and books that make it look like they are used every day, is a box of cereals.
The box is a simulation of two others very similar that allowed Airbnb to survive in 2008, already with the crisis at street level.
“It was a difficult year”, remembers Blecharczyk, “we were about to leave it”.
He himself underlines it: only to the point, since soon an idea came to them to gain presence through the included breakfast that the hosts used to offer their guests (at that time, Airbnb was
Air bed and breakfast)
.
Airbnb founders Nathan Blecharczyk, Product Manager Joe Gebbia and CEO Brian Chesky present 'Introducing Trips' at the 2016 Airbnb Open in Los Angeles Mike Windle
They designed a cereal box with Obama's face and another with that of his election opponent, John McCain. They called the first
Obama O's,
after the famous Cheerios brand, and the second
Cap'n McCain's,
alluding to the competitor's cereals, Cap'n Crunch. The boxes were assembled by Brian Chesky with cardboard and glue, one by one, 1,000 in total, and sold at the Democratic National Convention for $ 40 a unit. There were none left and the three founders gave them to get out of the pothole. The first of all, because it has not been the only one.
The last through which they have passed in these almost 14 years has had to do with the collapse of tourism in March 2020, with figures typical of the eighties. Blecharczyk, now in command of the company's global strategy, was caught by surprise, despite the fact that two months earlier he had already seen the business in China - he also runs Airbnb in the Asian country - was reduced to practically zero . "It was something very difficult to predict," he adds, noting that the mentality of going back to the beginning came from that, to when they were just a
startup.
.
“Making the decision to go backwards meant having fewer resources, fewer staff - in May 2020 about 25% of the workforce was laid off -, focusing more and prioritizing.
And although in recent years we have expanded into categories –including hotels–, we returned to our roots ”, he concedes.
The company went public at the beginning of last December: it was the largest IPO of the year.
January, February and March 2021 have represented the best first quarter in its history.
Something that they attribute in part to teleworking, which in their opinion is the beginning of a new era in which people will travel to live, more than for a strictly work or pleasure and disconnection reason.
La Rausch street apartment, in San Francisco, the house where the company was founded.Moba photo - Marc Olivier Le Blanc
A nomadic future?
Airbnb has gathered data from you to confirm that the new dynamic is already underway. In Spain, 30% of bookings so far in 2021 are long-term: at least 28 nights. Globally, these bookings have gone from 14% in 2019 to 24% in the first quarter of this year, in addition to the volume of reviews that mention the word “telecommuting” has increased by 520%. And it's not the only thing. By 2055, in the United States, a quarter of the workforce is expected to be working from home, according to a study by the
FlexJobs
portal
.
Now, the question is in the profile of people who will be able to afford to travel with the family in tow, paying the rent and the corresponding expenses of a second home, not to mention the taxes of the country to which they plan to move temporarily, in case to do it outside of Spain and for more than six months.
The New York Times
collected last May a list of tax-exempt territories: the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, Aruba, Costa Rica, Antigua and Barbuda - there you can stay free from six months to two years -, or Estonia and Iceland - up to a year, applying for a visa. Although saving, as confirmed to the American newspaper by a 47-year-old couple from California who had been in Iceland since January, saves rather little.
The company has also collected data that shows who are, today, those who travel the most as a philosophy of life: people between 60 and 90 years old are the first - that is, retired or almost, and judging by age, with children, as a rule, already independent or about to do so-, followed by young people between 18 and 24 years old, who most likely have just left university and who still do not have a property in their name.
Summer nights without fuss
What the American is clear about is that the desire to travel is not lacking now that summer is coming and he has wanted to apply certain adjustments in Airbnb. For the first time there will be a helpline in Spanish that will manage problems that may disturb the neighbors, such as an unauthorized party. In addition, since August last year, more than 50,000 reservation attempts have been blocked, most of them in Barcelona. “We now have a very constructive relationship with the city. We are working together and the future looks promising, ”says Blecharczyk. It says this because they have begun to alleviate illegal activity with an advertisement verification protocol, activated since January, which obliges the owners of the apartments to provide a truthful and complete address, so that it is difficult to publish previously withdrawn homes,or those that the Barcelona City Council has already classified as fraudulent.
Windows and a vertical grass application on one of the interior walls of Arbnb's San Francisco office.
Carlos Chavarría
Empty Spain will be a tad fuller, at least between now and September
Another argument shared by Airbnb is that, if it looks like any other summer, 2021 will be closer to 2020 than 2019. “There is still limited availability of flights, so we think there will continue to be a trend towards nearby destinations but far from the big cities ”.
The nights booked in rural areas, from June 1 to August 31, have risen to 20% in Spain, and many are concentrated in houses near parks and nature reserves, as in Germany, England or the United States.
Blecharczyk traveled a month ago with her two children to Sea Ranch, a rural community in Sonoma, California, three hours north of San Francisco, and did it through Airbnb: “I doubt that I would have prioritized that destination if I had not been in pandemic. He would probably be on a business trip or maybe we would have gotten on a plane, but the fact that we did not want to fly forced us to discover really interesting things that are not far away ”. The same thing happened with another trip he made to Sonoma County in February. "We discovered secondary roads and small vineyards," he says.
He highlights these destinations not only because the video call asked him whether or not to continue using Airbnb. There is something else. Between the lines emerges a response to the criticism that his platform has received for promoting mass tourism. Blecharczyk uses a figure: "70% of our offers in Spain are outside the hotel zones," he argues.
They are often outside the city centers, and also in small towns that have few or no hotels. At the end of 2018 the company collaborated with the Igualada City Council, in Barcelona, to create a sustainable tourism model that could later be replicated in places like Tortosa, the capital of Terres de l'Ebre, in southern Catalonia, with the participation of citizens, local businesses and associations, hosts, various entrepreneurs and public administrations in the region, although the platform's website does not report how things turned out. Blecharczyk's conclusion? "I think we are going forward and, for the moment, we will see a more sustainable and equitable type of tourist trip, especially on Airbnb."