Rough times may be ahead for Airbnb as Nick Geril, CEO of Reventure Consulting [1], late Tuesday tweeted [2] the below chart from short-term rental data and analytics group AllTheRooms [3] that showed revenue per available listing dropping by nearly 50% in some top U.S. cities.
This data, which was calculated between May 2022 and May 2023, found that the biggest decline—47.6%—was reported for listings in Sevierville, Tennessee, followed closely by Phoenix (-47.2%), Austin, Texas (-46.1%), Myrtle Beach, South Carolina (-45.1%), and San Antonio, Texas (-43.8).
Using data from AllTheRooms, there are roughly 1 million vacation-rentals-by-owner across multiple platforms compared to 570,000 properties for sale in the housing market.
This downturn in revenue could force these homeowners to sell, adding valuable inventory to the market, to try to limit their exposure to this drop.
This news also comes as more-and-more cities are curtailing—or completely banning—short-term rentals in single-family zoned properties, or instituting a hotel tax that added to the rental price.
Airbnb denies drops in revenue or a pending collapse.
“The data is not consistent with our own data,” an Airbnb company spokesman told MarketWatch in an email. “As we said during our Q1 earnings, more guests are traveling on Airbnb than ever before, with Nights and Experiences Booked growing 19% in Q1 2023 compared to a year ago.”
Despite signs of weakening in some Airbnb markets, the U.S. consumer doesn’t seem to be deterred from vacationing this summer as spending appetites continue to shift from goods toward experiences.
A survey by Allianz Partners released last month predicted total vacation spending exceeding $200 billion this summer, 10% higher than in 2022 and 39% above 2021’s level and 111% more than pre-pandemic 2019.
Airbnb’s stock price is following suit as people have become more skeptical of the company. On June 28, stock prices stood at $131.35 per share. But as this news broke, stock prices fell to $123.42 on June 29.