Aussies $11.5k move on cost of living crisis

The typical host in Australia earned almost $11,500 last year from their listing, new Airbnb data released on Thursday revealed.

Meanwhile, total host earnings globally have increased by 30 per cent in the third quarter compared to the same time last year, said Airbnb.

Hosts are using this extra money to help cover mortgage payments, everyday essentials and rising costs, the accommodation provider added.

According to a recent survey, almost 40 per cent of Australian hosts said the money they’ve earned through hosting has helped them stay in their home, 41 per cent said they’ve used the extra money to pay for food and other items that have become more expensive.

Airbnb was actually started during the global financial crisis, but was forced to lay off 25 per cent of its workforce during the pandemic.

Nathan Blecharczyk, co-founder of Airbnb said more than 30 million people had visited Airbnb’s hosting web page to potentially list their home in the last year, when just 4 million hosts are currently listed on the platform.

“We‘re living in times of increasing economic uncertainty, with inflation and the possibility of recession, and, you know, it reminds me a lot of when we founded the company,” Mr Blecharczyk told The Australian.

“Many of our early hosts in 2008 and 2009 were folks who had lost their jobs with the collapse of the financial industry and the great recession, and so we think that now more than ever folks are going to value the extra income.”

The surge in interest to become an Airbnb host has prompted the company to launch a range of new features to encourage people to sign on.

This includes free one-to-one guidance from a Superhost already listed on the platform, increasing damage protection up from $US1 million ($A1.49 million) to $US3 million ($A4.47 million) to cover cars, boats, art, jewellery and other valuables and adding six new categories of homes.

The categories include new homes added to the site in the past 10 weeks, properties with stunning views that are around 10,000 feet above sea level, places that are adapted for wheelchair access and homes with basketball courts, game rooms, miniature golf and water slides.

For the first booking, hosts could also choose an “experienced” guest who has at least three stays and a good track record on the site.

Airbnb said half of listings that were activated in the third quarter of this year received their first reservation within three days.

In May, Airbnb also introduced new categories which have gained 300 million views since launch.

The top five categories by median earnings in Australia since launch are design, which earned hosts $9692, chef’s kitchen paid out $7416, while skiing scored hosts $5874, golfing made $5727 and vineyards raked in $5590.

Brian Chesky, CEO and co-founder of Airbnb, said the platform was born during a recession when the duo couldn’t afford to pay their rent, so they inflated three air mattresses and created an AirBed and Breakfast.

“Soon, people all around the world joined us,” he said. “Today, just like during the Great

Recession in 2008, people are especially interested in earning extra income through hosting.”

Over two-thirds of Aussies were looking for ways to offset rising costs of living and almost one-in-three were looking for ways to offset the costs of their travel, a new YouGov survey commissioned by Airbnb also revealed.

But when it came to travelling, Australian’s top destinations on Airbnb were Paris, Singapore, London, Whistler in Canada and Wellington in New Zealand for the coming summer months.

However, Airbnb took a battering during the pandemic as lockdowns forced people to stay at home and in the last 12 months the company’s shares had plummeted by 48 per cent, forcing the company to slash its workforce.

“A lot of companies are going through some pain right now and having to make those people choices,” Mr Blecharczyk said.

“Prior to the pandemic, we had basically a decade of growth and access to easy capital, and that meant we hadn’t had to make some of these kinds of hard choices.

“We were getting into things like flights and magazines, and then we had a bit of a reckoning where we had to ask ourselves, ‘What is our true competitive advantage?’ And that, of course, was our hosts and hosting.”

But Airbnb hosts in the US were panicking about a sudden drop in bookings last month, prompting an outpouring of complaints from thousands of former guests.

A viral Twitter post in October shared a screenshot from a private Facebook group for “Airbnb Superhosts”, a term for the top-rated owners on the platform.

That sparked a flood of responses from disgruntled travellers arguing rising prices, steep cleaning fees and other onerous guest requirements had simply made traditional hotels more attractive.

Meanwhile, in the lead up to the Qatar World Cup some of the offerings on Airbnb have been exposed as filthy rip offs.

This included a cockroach-ridden $A1140-a-night hovel is among filthy rip-off flats on offer to England fans at the Qatar World Cup.

The flat, with its cracked walls, soiled mattress and at least five ’roaches in the kitchen, was next to a noisy building site in Doha.

Another Airbnb host, Riham, was offering digs in the capital with stained walls and lounge-kitchenette for $938 a night.