What value does Airbnb add to the South African economy?
Since its launch in 2015 Airbnb has grown rapidly in South Africa. Like other disruptive businesses, it has faced pushback from the traditional hospitality industry.
To establish the contribution of Airbnb, the Shared Value practice at Genesis Analytics was asked to undertake an independent study to quantify the benefit of Airbnb to the economy.
The report found that since Airbnb’s founding, two million guests have arrived at listings on Airbnb in South Africa, and over 3.5 million guests have arrived at listings across Africa as a whole. Roughly half of these arrivals occurred in the past year. Cape Town remains the top destination by a long way, followed by Johannesburg and Durban.
Among other things, Genesis estimated that in 2017/2018 host and guest activity on Airbnb generated about R8.7 billion ($678 million) for the economy, which corresponds to support 22,000 jobs.