Airbnb CEO: It Took Us 12 Years to Build, and We Lost Almost Everything in 6 Weeks
Brian Chesky indicates that tourism of the future will focus on domestic travel.
By Entrepreneur Staff •
You can spend decades building a dream, and the world can destroy it with something as random as a pandemic from an unknown virus. That was exactly what happened to Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, with the arrival of the COVID-19 this year.
"It took us 12 years to build Airbnb, and we lost almost everything in four to six weeks," Chesky said in an interview on CNBC, indicating that the company was preparing to go public this year, and now that is up in the air.
Chesky also noted that Airbnb faces an uncertain future due to fears of outbreaks that are already being experienced around the world, adding, "Tourism as we knew it is over. I don't want to say that the journey is over, but rather that the model we knew has died and will not return. We are going to get in our cars, drive a few kilometers to a small community and stay in a house.
Related: What Does the Crisis Mean for the Sharing Economy?
The CEO noted that at least in the United States, Airbnb is already recovering, although it does not want to have "false hopes and that its company is not absolutely out of the woods. "
