ER
AN accommodation and tourist services aggregator, Airy is rumored to be stopping operations permanently by the end of this month. Airy explained that the COVID-19 pandemic had threatened almost all business sectors, especially the tourism sector.
In an email to its property partners, quoted from Tech in Asia, Friday, Airy said it would terminate the agreement with its partners, following the company’s decision to permanently suspend operations.
“We have made our best efforts to overcome the effects of this (international) disaster. However, given the significant technical decline and reduction in human resources we have at the moment, we have decided to stop our (business) activities permanently,” said the company was in the email.
“For this reason, after May 31, 2020, we cannot provide (again) services to all our partners,” added Airy.
Antara.news has contacted Airy to confirm the news, but a company spokesman was unable to provide further information about this.
Meanwhile, in an interview with Tech in Asia in March, Airy CEO Louis Alfonso Kodoatie said that the company made a strategic change to reduce the impact of the pandemic that had affected Airy’s occupancy rates.
“We are optimistic that the pandemic will be resolved soon and the travel industry can recover. With the right technology and service quality, we believe that Airy can bounce back faster and restore our business as before,” Kodoatie said at the time.
However, last month, it was reported that the startup fired around 70 percent of its staff. Founded in 2015, Airy has a network of 2,000 properties with more than 30,000 rooms. This startup is also a strategic partner of the Traveloka accommodation service provider unicorn.
The travel and hospitality industry has struggled to survive since the COVID-19 pandemic pushed governments to issue travel bans around the world to break the chain of the spread of the corona virus.
OYO, which is supported by SoftBank, reportedly experienced a 50 to 60 percent decrease in revenue, forcing companies to implement payroll deductions and employee leave.
Budget hotel startup based in Singapore, RedDoorz also offers temporary leave to its staff and dismiss less than 10 percent of the total workforce. [antaranews/photo special]
