Airbnb on 15th September released Airbnb’s Guide to Live and Work Anywhere: How Communities Can Benefit from Remote Workers which as suggested, is a guide for governments and other travel destinations.
The guidelines basically focus on recommendations that Airbnb believes governments and other travel destinations must understand regarding remote workers and how the adaptation of the hospitality industry to the trend can be economically beneficial for the community and everyone involved.
Airbnb came up with these guidelines after it collaborated with twenty different destinations that are adopting remote workers and drew insights and data from those experiences and did a worldwide review of remote worker programmes.
“Where policy-makers once had to fight to attract entire companies (or even industries), today governments and destination marketing organizations must consider how to recruit individuals and families who can work remotely and how to ensure that the benefits of remote work are felt by the wider community,” said Nathan Blecharczyk, Co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Airbnb. “The best approach is one that not only attracts remote workers but also integrates them into communities so that all residents can benefit from this rising trend.”
An increase in remote work services can be seen around the world which is in direct response to the pandemic and a huge reset button in the hospitality industry. Many guests on the Airbnb platform are choosing to book accommodations for more than twenty-eight days and even guests with initial short-period rentals are extending their booking to stay in the same location. From the first quarter of 2019, the demand for long-term stays has been growing and doubled in 2022.
The socio-economic impact of remote workers on the destinations and the community itself that are too huge to be ignored. It can be seen in Tulsa, which after adopting a remote worker program saw addition of $20 million to its Gross Domestic Product and with every dollar spent on the incentive program resulted in $2.38 in new induced labour income locally, there was approximately an addition of $1.6 million in induced state and local tax revenue in 2021.
Here are from “Airbnb’s Guide to Live and Work Anywhere: How Communities Can Benefit from Remote Workers” some suggestions to reap benefits from remote working
- Streamline the tax compliance
- Improve processing of visa
- Local businesses should be given support to remote workers by encouraging them.
- Host neighbourhoods should be hospitable to remote workers and help immerse them and their families into their host environment.
The remote worker initiative that is being adopted by the hospitality industry is not just beneficial for businesses like Airbnb but also for smaller cities and rural communities which were affected adversely due to the growth of macroeconomic trends in the past decade. In march 2020 when the pandemic hit and the trend of remote work started, more than 8,100 cities and towns received their first-ever Airbnb bookings – including over 1,300 in the United States. In 2021, Airbnb bookings in rural areas for a night stay by American guests grew 110% against 2019 and helping the rural counties generate over $3.5 billion in the United States over the past year.
Airbnb practices what it preaches and has partnered with twenty other global destinations to expand the area for remote workers to work with guests, Hosts and host communities. In September, Airbnb launched its remote work hubs in Tampa Bay and Tulsa and will launch Salzkammergut (Austria), Thailand, Cape Town, and Friuli Venezia Giulia (Italy).
According to Airbnb, in the second quarter of 2022, their fastest growing category by the length of the trip was the long-term stays for twenty-eight days as compared to 2019. In 2019, these long-term trips increased by 90% and from last year these twenty-eight-day stay trips increased up to 25%.
About:
Airbnb was introduced to the hospitality industry in 2007 by two hosts who invited three guests into their homes. And now this cooperation has grown to such heights that across 220 countries there have been more than one billion guests have been welcomed by four million hosts. Airbnb generates financial benefits for the travel and tourism facilitator and has helped millions of individuals who act as hosts and welcome guests to their properties.
