Airbnb suspends all operations in Russia and Belarus

Airbnb has suspended all operations in Russia and Belarus, and in addition stopped customers of the house rental website from each nations from making any bookings, within the firm’s newest response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The house rental agency, which has virtually 100,000 short-term leases out there throughout each nations based on the market analysis agency AirDNA, has been vocal in its assist of Ukraine.

Brian Chesky, the co-founder and chief govt of Airbnb, who has added the Ukrainian flag to his Twitter profile, tweeted the suspension in a one-line submit.

Airbnb is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus

— Brian Chesky 🇺🇦 (@bchesky) March 4, 2022

The corporate elaborated on Chesky’s tweet, including that the ban would prolong to Airbnb members of these nations attempting to make any bookings on the location.

“Because of this we are going to block calendars from accepting new bookings in each nations till additional discover,” mentioned a spokesperson for the corporate. “We can even limit customers in Belarus and Russia from making new reservations as friends. We definitely hope that as we glance to the long run, a path to peace is solid.”

Q&A

Manufacturers which have give up Russia

Present

Numerous firms have pulled their operations and companies in Russia since its invasion of Ukraine. These embrace:

Retailers

Ikea has briefly closed all shops and factories in Russia, affecting 15,000 staff. It has shuttered its 17 retailers throughout Russia however mentioned it will maintain its Mega buying centres open.
H&M has briefly suspended all gross sales in Russia. The agency mentioned that retailers in Ukraine had already been closed briefly “because of the security of consumers and colleagues”.
JD Sports activities has ceased all buying and selling in Russia throughout each its model web sites and wholesale channels, including that it represented lower than 0.05% of annual revenues.
Mango, the Spanish clothes retailer, mentioned it was briefly closing its retailers and its on-line sale web site in Russia, whereas it’s monitoring “with unhappiness and concern” the state of affairs in Ukraine.
Nike has mentioned it’s stopping Russian clients from shopping for on-line.
Adidas has suspended its partnership with the Russian Soccer Union.
Marks & Spencer has suspended shipments to its Turkish franchisee’s Russian enterprise. Operation ceased final week at its 10 shops in Ukraine, which employs 250 individuals. It has 48 shops in Russia and 1,200 workers, additionally by way of the franchisee.
Boohoo has halted gross sales in Russia and closed its Russian buying and selling web sites.
Asos has suspended gross sales in Russia. It mentioned it was “neither sensible nor proper to proceed to commerce in Russia”.

Journey

Airbnb has suspended all operations in Russia and Belarus. It has additionally taking bookings from individuals in each nations.
Expedia has stopped promoting journey out and in of Russia.

Carmakers

Volkswagen has stopped manufacturing of autos in Russia “till additional discover”. Car exports to Russia have additionally been stopped “with rapid impact”, it mentioned.
Toyota halted manufacturing at its St Petersburg plant and automobile imports into the nation have additionally stopped indefinitely.
Common Motors, Jaguar Land Rover and Renault have halted gross sales and operations in Russia. Mercedes-Benz mentioned it would cease promoting vehicles and vans to Russia, as has Aston Martin. Harley-Davidson has halted bike shipments to Russia.

Drinks trade

Diageo, the maker of Smirnoff vodka and Guinness has paused exports to Russia and Ukraine.
Coca-Cola HBC has halted manufacturing at its bottling manufacturing unit in Kyiv and evacuated its workers.

Tech, media and leisure

Apple has paused gross sales in Russia.
Meta, proprietor of Fb, mentioned it had stopped recommending content material from Russian state media to all customers of Fb, with Instagram to observe.
Google has suspended all promoting in Russia after the nation’s web regulator demanded the corporate cease exhibiting what it thought of had been adverts displaying false details about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Walt Disney Firm is pausing its launch of movies in Russia.
Netflix mentioned it has no plans to distribute information, sports activities and leisure channels from Russian state media.

Luxurious items firms

Burberry has halted all shipments of luxurious items to Russia “resulting from operational challenges”.

Manufacturing

JCB, the British building tools maker, mentioned it had paused all operations, together with the export of machine and spare components within the nation.

Russia has greater than 93,000 listings on Airbnb, and Belarus virtually 4,000, based on AirDNA.

On Thursday, Airbnb waived charges for hosts and people reserving leases in Ukraine. It took the choice after members of the general public started making bookings in Ukraine with no intention of travelling as a method of offering monetary assist to residents dealing with hardship in the course of the invasion.

Ukraine has greater than 17,000 lively short-term rental listings.

On Monday, Airbnb pledged to supply free housing to 100,000 Ukrainian refugees. The corporate has mentioned it has acquired “overwhelming assist” for the initiative, with greater than 260,000 guests to date to a devoted internet web page the place it’s doable to enroll to be a bunch or to donate.

Signal as much as the day by day Enterprise At this time e mail or observe Guardian Enterprise on Twitter at @BusinessDesk

Earlier this week, Chesky mentioned the corporate was assessing its choices relating to its Russian operation. “We don’t have a big enterprise in Russia,” he informed CNN. “It isn’t one in every of our main markets. [But] we’re completely revisiting our relationship [about whether] to do enterprise in Russia.”

Final yr, Airbnb took bookings for 300m nights throughout 4 million hosts globally, price a complete of $46.8bn (£35.3bn). The corporate, which was based in 2008, was floated in 2020, hovering to a market worth of about $100bn.

Airbnb joins a quickly rising and intensive record of firms which can be severing ties or pausing operations in Russia, together with Ikea, the worldwide recruitment firm Hays, Apple, Netflix and all the foremost Hollywood studios, the retailers H&M, Marks & Spencer, Burberry and Boohoo, and automotive producers together with Ford, BMW and Mercedes-Benz.

Source link