Airbnb plummets predicting decline bookings delta variant - Airbnb shares fell 5% yesterday after the company predicted a decline in third-quarter reserves compared to pre-pandemic levels due to the spread of the delta variant of COVID-19.

Investors already fear the variant's impact on the travel industry, a fear heightened by the announcement of the vacation rental platform and already being warned by other companies in the sector such as Booking and Expedia, reports Bloomberg.

Airbnb exceeded booking expectations for the second quarter and provided a very positive revenue outlook for the current period, indicating that the projected decline in total bookings will not hinder sales.

As reported by the same media, the San Francisco-based company reported a gross reserve value in the second quarter of 13,400 million dollars (around 11,415 million euros at the current rate), an increase of 37% over the same period in 2019. Analysts had predicted $ 11.2 billion on average, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.

Airbnb plummets predicting decline bookings delta variant

Revenues for the second quarter stood at $ 1,340 million (€1,141 million), 10% more than pre-pandemic levels.

Although the company insists on the imminent return of travel, the delta variant has raised more doubts for the future. "We anticipate that the impact of COVID-19 and the introduction and spread of new variants of the virus will continue to affect overall travel behavior," the company said in a statement. However, it added a positive outlook for the current period, predicting the " strongest quarterly revenue in history."

Airbnb plummets predicting decline bookings delta variant

The company's CEO, Brian Chesky, noted that the pandemic had forced the company to be much more disciplined and much more efficient. "When we started Airbnb, stays longer than a month were not a big part of the business," he said. "Long stays of 28 days or more are now the fastest growing category for travel duration. That's not even traveling, it's living," Chesky said.

Short-term rentals were the fastest growing part of the online travel industry, even before the pandemic. In the last 18 months, they have kept the sector afloat.

Airbnb reported that the number of active listings grew in the second quarter. "We are seeing the strongest increases in supply in areas with the highest guest demand," the company said in the statement. Earlier this year, Airbnb introduced a digital campaign focused on attracting new hosts, and the company said traffic to the host section of its website more than doubled in the countries where the campaign took place.

Despite doubts raised by delta, Airbnb saw an increase of almost 200% in nights and experiences booked, which includes all stays and tourist activities sold on the platform. The company recorded 83.1 million total reserves in the quarter, surpassing analysts ' average estimate of 77.5 million.

Airbnb plummets predicting decline bookings delta variant

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Doing a renovation at home will cost you 10% more: the price of raw materials is making construction services more expensive

The economic aspect is one of the most important if you are thinking of doing a reform at home. Some works can be a great cost to your pocket, so it is necessary to review the prices carefully.

The cost of a comprehensive reform of your house will depend on the square meters of the house. The general price ranges from 400 to 600 euros per square meter, depending on the quality of the materials, the city in which you live and other factors.

As you can see, this is not a decision that you should take lightly, since the investment reaches an important level. In addition, it must be borne in mind that the prices of construction services have increased in recent months, which can cause a reform to come out this quarter 10% more expensive than the previous, as reported by Independiente.

This increase in prices is mainly due to one factor: the rise in the cost of certain raw materials that suffer from shortages in the market.

"Everything that is aluminum and metals, petroleum products, as well as wood have registered a very important increase", reveals Sebastián Molinero, secretary general of the National Association of Distributors of Ceramics and Building Materials (Antimac), to El Independiente.

The lack of materials also causes the time needed to carry out a reform to increase, and this, in turn, affects the cost, which becomes higher because the number of hours worked increases.

And to this must be added the difficulty of finding skilled labour, a problem that the construction sector has been facing for some months.

As if that were not enough, the crisis in shipping and the blockade of Chinese ports is also aggravating the difficulty of access to raw materials, which further increases the cost of materials and the working time needed to carry out the reform. The flooding in parts of China and Europe this summer is also bad news.

In any case, the final cost will depend to a large extent on the volume of the work itself. "If the volume of the reform is very large, the increase is less pronounced. But if there are few things that have to be reformed, there it is quite noticeable", explains Luis López Soriano, from the company Tectum Arquitectura to El Independiente.

Finally, it should be noted that companies are being forced to shorten the validity period of the quotes they offer customers. "We are offering budgets at a month's notice or at most 2 and a half months if the customer is a regular", details Soriano.