Hosts of Airbnb Inc., located in parts of war-torn Ukraine, are watching the jump in online bookings of guests who do not intend to show up but want to show their support.
A social media campaign launched on March 2nd generated thousands of reservations across the country, even as invading Russian forces indiscriminately shelled civilian neighborhoods in cities such as Kharkiv, Chernihiv, Mariupol and Sumy.
The goal is to get the money into the hands of Ukrainians on the spot as soon as possible, said Rob Meehan, host of Airbnb with properties in Guadalajara and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, which is involved in local efforts.
Mr Meehan joined the Airbnb platform on Friday morning and wrote “Ukraine”. When an apartment appeared in the capital Kyiv, he booked it for the first two free nights for a total of $ 229.
“Like many other people, I am stressed by this. All the sadness that is happening there, “he said on Friday.
As Kherson became the first Ukrainian city to fall under Russian occupation, people hid in their homes. The United Nations says more than a million people fled Ukraine in the first week of the war. Photo: Daniel Leal / AFP / Getty Images
As a host, Mr Mihan himself said he knew the owners would be paid within a day of the arrival date. Airbnb said payment is released 24 hours after the property’s check-in time, regardless of whether the guest shows up.
He sent a message to the host to say that his reservation was an act of solidarity and that he did not intend to show up. She responded a few minutes later, thanking him for his support.
“Ukraine’s fighting spirit cannot be stopped,” the presenter said in a statement Mr Meehan told The Wall Street Journal. “He will die only with the last Ukrainian.
Mr Meehan is one of thousands in the world who have booked a stay at Airbnb as a way to support Ukrainian citizens after social media reports began spreading the idea online earlier this week.
The campaign was boosted when Airbnb CEO Brian Cesky retweeted one of the original messages. Airbnb has separately set up its own temporary housing initiative for up to 100,000 refugees fleeing Ukraine through Airbnb.org, the company’s non-profit housing division. Airbnb also stopped all operations in Russia and Belarus.
By the end of the day on Thursday, guests from the United States had booked 34,000 overnight stays in Ukraine, according to data released by Airbnb on Friday. Guests from the United Kingdom have spent 8,000 nights, and Canadian guests have booked nearly 3,000.
The company said it was waiving all of its service fees for bookings made in Ukraine in response to the campaign’s “inspiring generosity”.
For UK-based travel agent Graham Bishop Makrides, the exemption was a major factor in his decision to book a reservation in Ukraine.
He said he turned to Airbnb on Twitter to make sure all the money from the reservation would go to the host. When the company confirmed that it would do so, Mr Makrides began disseminating the information, activating his network of the tourism industry.
“I just don’t feel we’ve done enough,” Mr Makrides said of the West’s response to the crisis.
Members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization have repeatedly said that they will not be directly involved in the conflict. But the United States, the United Kingdom and the European Union have imposed tough sanctions on Russia and sent arms, money and other support to Ukraine.
“At least this is something we can do to show the Ukrainians that they are not alone, we are there with them,” Mr Makrides said.
The first reservation he made was with a family that hosted him during a visit to Kyiv in 2019.
“They answered me and asked me to pray for them that they really needed it, and they said thank you very much,” Mr Makrides said. “They asked me to ask people to book in the city of Kharkiv, because it’s really awful what’s going on there.”
Russia has besieged Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city. The airstrikes destroyed buildings and forced thousands of residents to take refuge at the station while waiting to be evacuated.
Other large cities are under prolonged attack. In Kyiv, residents are suffering daily attempts by Russian forces to take over. Every day from February 24 – the beginning of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war to overthrow Ukraine’s democratically elected government and end its unification with the West – Ukrainian special forces detained them.
Residents of picturesque Lviv, a city with blue spiers and Austro-Hungarian architecture, are ready to become a reserve capital if the government led by President Vladimir Zelensky is forced to leave Kyiv.
Lviv is also emerging as a center for the supply of weapons and materials that the West has transported to Ukraine. This has raised some concerns that it could become the next major target of the Russian military.
“I feel so helpless,” said Rob Bujan, who runs an insurance agency in Hudson, New York, about 100 miles north of New York.
On Friday, he booked a two-day stay at Airbnb in Lviv for $ 85 a night. Mr Buyan said he had scanned the ads to check for previous check-ups to make sure he was giving to a trusted host and not a scammer.
He told the hosts that he would not come and that if anyone else needed the room, he would give it to them. They wrote: “Hundreds of thousands of Americans and Europeans lend a helping hand to Ukraine. We will never forget it. “
Mr Buyan said Zelensky’s courage was part of what prompted him to find a way to give it to Ukrainians.
“He turned around and united the world in a way that no other president has been able to do,” Mr Buyan said. “I just think it’s amazing and it’s amazing what people in Ukraine are doing in opposition to Russia.
Write to Ginger Adams Otis at [email protected]
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