Airbnb to Remove All Listings in China by Mid-Summer

Low revenue and continued lockdowns prompted by the COVID-19 pandemic in China have led to the company’s decision to exit the country. American company Airbnb is a service that enables property owners to rent out their homes to travelers.

Vacation rental firm Airbnb will be removing all their listings for both homes and experiences from mainland China by summer after initially launching their business in 2016, it was revealed Monday.

The financial decision comes after the company was unable to achieve profitability in the country amid a steady flow of domestic competition, which the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated due to lockdowns and social distancing measures enacted to stop the spread of the respiratory illness.

Airbnb hostings in China have only made up 1% of the company’s revenue over the last few years. In addition to that blow, Airbnb’s shares have fallen more than 30% in 2022 due to tech stocks taking a bigger piece of the pie.

Airbnb has also received criticism as well as regulatory law risk for listing more than a dozen rentals in China’s Xinjiang region, where the regional government is accused of carrying out a ‘genocide’ against Uyghurs— China’s largest minority ethnic group in Xinjiang.

The latest comes after the Biden administration first accused China of committing a genocide against the Uyghur community in 2021, years after claims first surfaced in 2018 that China had allegedly put some 1 million Uyghurs Muslims in reeducation camps.

China has repeatedly rejected accusations that authorities in Xinjiang are taking part in a genocide, forcibly sterilizing Uyghur women, or prohibiting the practice of Islam; in fact, officials have underscored that the centers are voluntary deradicalization programs for former extremists.

Airbnb will maintain an office in Beijing for Chinese residents who wish to travel outside of their country. The office will also focus on “other global projects,” a source told Axios. Despite fluctuating travel statistics in the country, five rounds of surveys conducted by McKinsey & Company show that a desire for travel still remains strong in China.