Distribution

Do we really want to see Airbnb recover?

The coronavirus has been the only force so far that has been capable of preventing the company’s continual expansion.

Previous attempts to regulate Airbnb have proved ineffective due to the company’s deep pockets, lobbying power and willingness to fight regulations in courts across the world. While it is temporarily halted, it’s time we acknowledged that it is a threat to affordable housing and should be replaced by a democratically controlled alternative.

Market Data

Where do we go from here?

Predictions from travel experts at 11 travel organizations around the world

When this pandemic passes, where will the travel industry be? Where will we want to go? Or will we want to, in the same ways we have before? Who knows?

Market Data

Remote working could put an end to the office as we know it

Global pandemic could motivate permanent transition to a virtual-only workplace

The ongoing pandemic has brought about the world’s largest remote working experiment, with tens of millions forced to participate worldwide - and its outcome will likely have repercussions that will reverberate long after the last quarantine restrictions are lifted.

Also today

Why is getting a refund from OTAs so hard? Online travel sites are scrambling to handle an unprecedented number of cancellation requests, and many customers say they are falling short.

Hotelbeds expects to secure $430M. The company with 5,000 workers may not long be able to affords its operational costs as its revenues from hotel partners collapse.

Sojern lays off 50% of staff. The ad-tech firm servicing travel companies has laid off about 300 employees due to financial instability caused by the coronavarius pandemic.

Accor reduces staff, closes hotels, creates support fund. The company currently has closed more than half of its Accor-branded hotels worldwide, with that number likely reaching two-thirds in the coming weeks

TUI to lay off 11,000 staff in UK. The company said 4,455 travel agency employees, roughly 99% of shop staff, will be sent home following the closure of its high-street network.

COVID-19: How Google is tracking you. The company tracks your movements to see if you’re going places you're not supposed to be going or staying put amid the global coronavirus pandemic.

Vendor News & Views

STR: Prepare for bounce back in 2021. Last weeks STR webinar remained confident that the current crisis will transpire into a ‘V’ shaped recovery, with a tourism bounce back by next year.

Fuel Travel: What COVID-19 means for your hotel analytics data. At some point, this crisis is going to pass, and life will return to some semblance of normalcy. The problem is that your data from this year is anything but normal.

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Also today

Vendor News & Views

Hotels hope to make up for lost business later in the year