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I have full-time vacation rentals in Hawaii on Airbnb and Vrbo which have been vacant since March. The past couple weeks we have finally started to get inquiries and bookings, with our first guests back arriving in the beginning of November. We've had very few cancellations for our 2021 dates, but we also haven't had our normal stream of bookings for 2021–more of a pause of 2021 activity.

We believe there will be pent-up demand for vacations in 2021 after travel restrictions relax (Maui has had mandatory 14 quarantines in place which end this week). People will have more unused vacation time than normal and quarantine fatigue/cabin fever will also increase demand.

I do agree that air travel will be the biggest barrier for us. The non-stops from where we live are gone for now, so the shortest travel time has gone from 5h 30m to an 11h 30m red-eye.

Pent up demand but no money to spend on these vacations. Why would you fly to Hawaii when you don’t know if you can make next months rent?

Do you really think the people who can't make next month's rent substantially overlap with the frequent air travelers?

It's definitely not the case among my peers. If anything, the people who traveled a lot have just been saving a lot of money during covid while they WFH and are unable to spend it as frivolously.

I have friends who had great jobs (and would take frequent vacations) but have since been laid off and are now living at home.

Sure my tech friends have done great, but not everybody works in an industry that's conducive to remote work.

Were those people taking vacations in the first place? All the white-collar workers who fly to AirBnBs in better climates are still pulling in a paycheck working from home.

Yes. Their industries were impacted by Covid and are unlikely to recover anytime soon.

I've been following the situation in Hawaii too. It seems like it is a different situation from continental travel, since like many island nations, they shut down visitor arrivals and thus airline travel with the 14-day quarantine you mention. You can't do that at Tahoe or Mammoth. It seems like each island has different requirements now, or at least each island wants a stricter 3-day negative retesting protocol.

And the locals were really vigilant, they were reporting any quarantine breakers on Facebook and to local authorities. In some cases, people who refused to cooperate got flown back off the islands.

And from what I read, even though the local economies are decimated by the lack of tourist dollars, a lot of locals are really happy to not be overrun with tourists at their favorite beaches. There is also talk of less tourist numbers, to be made up for with higher value tourists--less budget options. I wonder if things will ever go back to what they were before, because a lot of people didn't like it before.

Yeah, it has been interesting. I'm glad they are staying safe even if it has affected our income substantially. It isn't the islander's fault the U.S. has been unable to contain the virus for so long. I'm not sure about the other islands, but for Maui person over 5 years old coming to the island needs a negative test within 72 hours or they will need to quarantine for 14 days. They tried to implement this the past couple months, but changed back to the 14 day requirement.

Yes, the quarantine orders were very strict. You could not even go pick up a rental car. You needed a private driver hired. You could not go get groceries. We know of people staying at a hotel that opened the door when a service person knocked to change something. The guest told them they were in quarantine and shut the door. The front desk called within a couple minutes to ask why the door had opened.

The locals we've been in contact with have been making the most of it. They have very much enjoyed having the island to themselves. It is (hopefully) a once in a life time opportunity for them.

> Corporate travel will never return to pre-covid levels, and credit card miles are a big part of this as well.

One example - The last several years, I probably charged in excess of $120k / year on one particular airline card. This year, probably $1000 so far, mainly recurring bills I haven't bothered to switch to another card.

Since cards had become a significant revenue driver for airlines, this is going to have some medium term negative financial consequences as well.

(I'm probably not even in the top 20% of business travelers, either)

I predict none of those doomsday predictions will come to pass, and everything will be back to pre-covid levels soon enough (maybe 2-5 after the pandemic recedes). In the meantime, the sector is in for a rough ride, yes.

I don't have much more compelling arguments than you have, so time will tell!

>maybe 2-5 after the pandemic recedes

Months? Years?

I read aviation news sources weekly.

Domestic air travel (inside national borders) will have various starts and stops due to corona. The worst-case is if the FAA rules something like jets must be 100% disinfected between flights, which could be $250,000 or more per leg. (That is the case for some drug-resistant TB patient flights.)

But I'd estimate that international airline travel will take a year to start again after a vaccine is globally available, so in the area of 2 more years. I say globally because travellers were found to be skirting travel bans from China to the USA via legs to Africa and Canada.

The international airline industry really doesn't have any corona answers at this time.

A gradual increase in air travel is unavoidable since unpickling airliners will take a considerable amount of time - each jet will take about a calendar week to prepare for inspection, consisting of one man-month of work. If problems are found, then longer.

(Airliners aren't designed to sit for an extended period of time, so there's all kinds of moisture, landing gear/tires and corrosion issues that are possible. Big planes create big problems.)

Besides planes, another issue that will need to be addressed is that pilots need a variety of recurring training and medical certificates, so that would cause a spike in demand that can't be met after a sudden re-opening.

Currently, the FAA has various modified rules and extensions, but those are temporary and the FAA is loathe to allow gaps in airmen standards.

https://www.ainonline.com/aviation-news/business-aviation/20...

Source: commercially-rated airplane pilot.

Sorry, years.

I think you're right about a lot of trends here, especially the funny point about how airlines rewards programs are worth more than the airlines themselves.

However, business travel and leisure travel shouldn't be conflated. I'm much more worried about the hotel industry - which caters to business travelers that will be significantly impaired for much longer post-COVID.

I.e. domestic Airbnb spending was actually up 22% in July YoY, whereas hotels are still getting destroyed.[1]

[1]: https://trends.edison.tech/research/airbnb-hotel-sales-sept-...

I think it actually makes sense that AirBnB might see business picking up in local rentals. With people generally being wary of air travel due to Covid, and the economic pressures to not spend as much, a road trip + an AirBnb do seem like an attractive vacation option: it's far enough from home, and it's more affordable than a hotel.

On the topic of luxury, I'm not sure people appreciate what air travel becoming a luxury really entails. My wife mentioned a few months ago that air travel from North America to China was going for something like $80k per ticket at some point (and this is for economy class!). If we see Covid case numbers increasing again due to the flu season coming up, and if we see subsequent governmental pressures to limit air travel for even more extending periods of time, then the laws of supply and demand might make air travel prohibitively expensive even for relatively well-off people, like FAANG folks.

Perhaps a silver lining is that in such a scenario, maybe places like Bali might get a chance to take a break from tourist ecological destruction.

I don't think international travel will ever become $80k/ticket expensive. Even before widespread air travel, people traveled abroad on ocean liners for far less than that.

The govt will subsidize airfares and go back to regulation before a ticket costs 80k.

Would be great if the government just took over the US airlines - instead of trying to cram as many people as possible into a space let’s go back to all the countries trying to one-up each other with the luxury and opulence of their sovereign airlines.

agreed 100%

AirBnb is looking for bagholders

anyone with half a brain knows now is the absolute worst time to invest in something like AirBnb

On the other hand, if the IPO flops, and prices go down a lot, then it might become a worthwhile risk

Good. Air travel in its current form should be more expensive. It should cost a lot more to fly from coast to coast. Maybe then they could take seats out and make the whole experience for the average person a lot better. Something in between getting stuffed into a tube like cattle, or paying for extremely expensive first class tickets which you may not get anyway even if you can afford them because there's so few available on each flight.

Wouldn't count on it. Most people want to fly as cheaply as possible, also after corona. So airliners will keep on maximising seats per plane. Moreover, decreasing seats per plane will increase emission per passenger, so it also makes no sense from an environmental perspective. So it's more likely that you're going to pay more for the same "stuffed into a tube like cattle" experience.

Should only the rich be able to fly? I don't mind being crammed in a metal tube for a few hours if it means I can use the money to splurge on restaurants/activities while I'm there.