Tax Officer: Gentlemen, make your case for a bailout.
Airbnb: I am asset-light, I do not own properties; I deserve support to continue to serve our members via our apps.
Hilton Hotels: I own lands and properties across America; every big city mayor feels my impacts.
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Tax Officer: Airbnb, we do not bail out apps; Hilton, text me your account number.
(Airbnb has sought for federal help for its independent hosts, Hilton has asked for direct help)
Political leaders must work hard to ensure that all companies can thrive, post Covid-19. But one thing they must not do is being played by digital startups (like aggregators in video below) which have preached the sermons of asset-light, only evolving now to claim they misspoke. Consistency is very important in markets.
With a steep decline in business due to the coronavirus pandemic, Airbnb is asking the federal government to provide financial support and tax breaks for its hosts.
First reported by ThinkPol.ca, Airbnb’s letter addressed to deputy prime minister Chrystia Freeland dated March 17stated the cost of the COVID-19 pandemic to the travel industry is akin to the Sept. 11 attacks, and “among the most vulnerable are non-traditional workers,” such as their hosts who hold more than 170,000 properties across the country.
Post Covid-19 will bring the age of evolution where Uber drivers become Uber “non independents” and Airbnb hosts the same, flipping the old-age sermon of asset-light.
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There is nothing somebody will not hear because of this Covid-19 pandemic. Those ‘hosts’ Airbnb is seeking bailouts on their behalf, aren’t they citizens of the country? And how do you calculate their losses? Will their homes vanish too, since they are using their ‘spare rooms’ for business? The bailouts will be for the entire house or just the spare rooms? The same people receiving household stimulus cheques from the government will receive another bailout for being Airbnb’s hosts? Government has seen something…
Just like Covid-19 upended and deconstructed all the sermons on leadership and management, it has also deconstructed the posturing on asset-light business model, since everyone cries when hard time hits.
As they say in local parlance: everything na wash.