Airbnb says business was great in the Buffalo area last year, up 76% from pre-pandemic levels.
That translates to more than $21 million in income to Buffalo hosts of the short-term stay units in the first nine months of 2021, after just over $12 million in the first nine months of 2019.
Communications Manager Samuel Randall said national travel trends in 2021 were away from big cities and toward smaller cities like Buffalo.
“We saw behavior change and people start traveling again … to places that people didn't typically travel, necessarily, before the pandemic, which is really interesting,” he said. “Certainly people were more keen to travel to rural places or smaller and medium-sized cities than they were to big cities.”
And many of those travelers, who Randall calls “digital nomads,” are taking advantage of working from home and staying in new cities for longer.
“We're still seeing people travel for the long weekends, but, I think you are also increasingly seeing people travel for weeks at a time, sometimes seasons at a time,” he said. “People will stay an entire summer in a location that is not their home.”
He added that Airbnb works with governments that charge hotel taxes, as Erie County does, to make sure they are paid through voluntary collection agreements.
