Hundreds of Canadians have joined a social media trend to book rental properties through Airbnb in Ukraine.
Those customers, including Manitoban Liz Crawford, say they have no intention of staying at the properties.
“It’s so booked up we’ve had to do three nights here and another three nights over there. I’m not even sure what we’ve accumulated so far,” Crawford, the owner of Rosé Beach House, told Global News.
Right now, Airbnbs in Ukraine are booked to the brim.
“It’s actually kind of hard to find places, weirdly,” she said.
It’s a way for people to give money to Ukrainian hosts directly, and it’s getting attention from people around the world.
“We just let them know, like, honestly we’re not coming, please don’t feel the need to communicate with us. We just want to do what we can,” Crawford said.
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It’s a gesture that in turn has had families reach out, expressing their immense amount of gratitude.
Airbnb’s latest numbers show there’s been 61,000 bookings made on their site, however they are expected to share a much higher updated number on Tuesday.
“There’s this grassroots customer initiative that sort of stems from the community and then there’s Airbnb.org which is housing 100,000 refugees,” said Airbnb’s senior communications director, Matt McNama.
The refugee housing initiative aims to help those who are fleeing Ukraine. It’s one that Crawford, who owns a boutique motel in Winnipeg Beach, is supporting.
“We have this main cabin and we were going to list it and rent it for the summer, but we didn’t have to,” she said.
Instead she says she’s offered the space up to Airbnb to use as a place for a refugee family to live in. In the meantime, she says Airbnb has told her to be on standby for a family who will potentially be coming to Canada.
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