What occurred

Shares of Airbnb (ABNB -4.48%) had been sliding right now in response to a brief report from Edwin Dorsey, who coated issues on the firm on his Bear Cave weblog.

Airbnb inventory was down 4.1% as of 1:21 p.m. ET, after falling as a lot as 6.7% instantly after the report was launched earlier within the session.

Picture supply: Airbnb.

So what

Dorsey’s foremost argument towards Airbnb appears to be that the corporate’s base of hosts is more and more being professionalized and that these skilled hosts are launching their very own impartial web sites, competing with Airbnb and taking enterprise away from it.

The Bear Cave writer additionally notes that the corporate’s model picture is more and more destructive on social media, and that the corporate is stricken by horror tales about stays gone dangerous, together with the dying of a 19-month-old little one who died after by chance ingesting fentanyl at an Airbnb that had been used as a celebration home.

The weblog publish additionally says that the Airbnb host neighborhood has been shifting to professionally managed properties, and cites an AirDNA report that claims that 35% of Airbnb and VRBO income comes from skilled hosts, regardless that they make up simply 1% of complete hosts.

Now what

Dorsey makes some good factors, however most of what he says is not new and far of it is not actually problematic for Airbnb.

For instance, it is commonplace that skilled hosts on Airbnb would additionally intention to construct their very own direct companies. Vacasa, the publicly traded trip rental firm, lists properties each by itself website and on marketplaces like Airbnb. For these firms, Airbnb is a buyer acquisition channel, simply not the one one they use. 

This dynamic is frequent in different industries as effectively. Loads of Shopify sellers, for instance, additionally promote on Amazon since they’re in search of gross sales in any channel they’ll get them.

Skilled hosts aren’t going to chop out Airbnb so long as it stays a useful income stream for them.

Airbnb has loads of room for enchancment, and the corporate ought to take complaints about cleansing charges and chore lists critically. However its latest outcome must also reassure traders that the journey inventory remains to be heading in the right direction — income development stays sturdy and its margins proceed to enhance.