Spirit’s Uncertain Survival, Airbnb’s Hotels Play, and America’s Tourist Shakedown
Photo Credit: A smartphone and computer screens showing Spirit Airlines’ logo and branding. Adobe Stock / Timon
Skift Take
For our hump-day pod we discuss Airbnb’s new dalliance with hotels, the U.S.’s tourism unaffordability challenge, and Spirit Air’s continuing woes.
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Airbnb says it will aggressively add hotels in markets where most short-term rentals are already booked and work to convince more hotel guests to stay in Airbnbs, writes Executive Editor Dennis Schaal.
CEO Brian Chesky recently told financial analysts that Airbnb has spent a lot of time looking at hotels as a business, adding that the commissions the company receives from hotels are very competitive. He also said Airbnb is in dialogue with hotels worldwide, and many are looking to attract incremental guests via a new booking channel, namely Airbnb.
Although Airbnb has spoken many times in the past about adding more hotels to its platform, Chesky said homes will remain “the heart and soul of Airbnb.”
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Next, Spirit Airlines has warned it may not survive if it can’t raise enough money to satisfy creditors, writes Airlines Editor Gordon Smith.
Spirit, which emerged from Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March, issued the warning in its SEC filing published on Monday. The carrier has scrapped underperforming routes and made significant capacity cuts in recent months.
In addition, Spirit said it expects the challenging market conditions it currently faces — including weak demand for domestic leisure travel — to persist until at least the end of this year.
Finally, Skift CEO Rafat Ali argues the U.S. has built a tourism economy based on extracting maximum revenue from every interaction, and that the surging cost of visiting the U.S. mirrors the wider affordability crisis plaguing the country.
Ali writes travelers will find a masterclass in extractive capitalism disguised as hospitality in just about any U.S. destination, citing resort fees in Orlando and Las Vegas that can exceed the advertised room rate. He adds it’s often cheaper for Americans to fly to Europe than to take a domestic vacation.
Ali also writes the affordability crisis hitting tourists isn’t different from the one hammering locals, adding the same economic forces making major cities unlivable for residents are also making them unaffordable for visitors. He writes a sustainable tourism economy can’t be built on the backs of workers who can’t afford to live in the places they serve.
