Airbnbco-founder and CEO Brian Chesky told CNBC on Friday that the company will benefit from a post-Covid pandemic future of flexible living and working arrangements.
Chesky, who is on a nationwide tour of Airbnb stays to "improve the experience" for customers, believes that the continued adoption of remote job hiring and work will create a new segment of working travelers.
"They can do what I can do — I'm running a pretty large company off of a laptop with someone else's WiFi in their home,"
Chesky said on "TechCheck." "If I can do my job from my Atlanta home, that means a lot of people could travel all over the world and live, not just travel."
Airbnb's strategy for capturing this new segment, according to Chesky, is to create experiences that make customers feel as if they are living in a community rather than traveling to a temporary destination.
Chesky did not elaborate on how the home-rental company plans to accomplish this, but he did say that improvements to its services will be available in time for the expected summer travel surge.
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The CEO also stated that he expects bookings to skyrocket once international travel restrictions are relaxed.
"There will be a huge boom coming to Airbnb," Chesky predicted. "Before the pandemic, half of our business was transnational." As borders reopen, we will gain another advantage."
Airbnb shares are down for the year, having lost nearly 6% so far in 2022.
The stock has fared better than other growth-oriented companies and the Nasdaq Composite, which is down about 12% year to date.
