Some good news for the private renters of apartments, villas and rooms in Dubrovnik comes from one of the largest booking platforms in the world. Airbnb have reported that the number of overnight stays booked in cities in the last three months of last year has almost equalled the level of 2019. Whereas over the height of the pandemic tourists were looking to book accommodation away from crowds, such as on the islands and countryside around Dubrovnik, Airbnb have reported that tourists are starting to return to cities after easing pandemic restrictions. They say that reservations in the US for city accommodation has almost completely recovered from the pandemic.
Now the number of reservations in urban areas has started to grow and in the three months to January 1, it accounted for 49 percent of booked overnight stays, the company said. "Although travel to popular cities has not yet fully returned to the level of 2019, we see signs of the return of passengers," they said. They also estimate that the total number of overnight stays booked in the first three months of 2022 will probably exceed the pre-pandemic level for the first time.
In the fourth quarter of last year, their revenue jumped nearly 80 percent, to $ 1.5 billion. It also exceeded the level from the same pre-pandemic period in 2019, by 38 percent. The company ended the last three months of last year with a record net profit, of $ 55 million, highlighting strong revenue growth and cost control. In the same period a year earlier, it had a net loss of $ 3.9 billion.
And not only are tourists coming back to urban areas but they are also booking longer stays than before. Nearly a quarter of overnight stays booked in the last three months of 2021 were for four weeks or longer, the company said. And one of the drivers of this has been the fact that people can work from home, and remote working has meant that more people are deciding to work from abroad. “Teleworking has freed many people from the need to be in the office every day, so they have dispersed, visiting thousands of places and cities and staying for weeks, months or even an entire season,” they note.