Slomads Rising: Stay Length Shifts in Digital Nomad Travel, United States 2019-2024
Harrison Katz, Erica Savage

TL;DR
This study analyzes how the COVID-19 pandemic affected the length of stay in U.S. Airbnb bookings from 2019 to 2024, revealing increased stay durations and shifts in booking patterns during different pandemic phases.
Contribution
It provides a quantitative analysis of pandemic-era shifts in stay lengths and booking behaviors using comprehensive reservation data and advanced statistical modeling.
Findings
Mean nights per booking increased during the pandemic.
Long stays (28+ nights) became more common post-pandemic.
Structural level shift in booking patterns identified during COVID-19.
Abstract
Using all U.S. Airbnb reservations created in 2019-2024 (booking-count weighted), we quantify pandemic-era shifts in nights per booking (NPB) and the mechanism behind them. The mean rose from 3.68 pre-COVID to 4.36 during restrictions and stabilized near 4.07 post-2021 (about 10% above 2019); the booking-weighted median moved from 2 to 3 nights. A two-parameter log-normal fits best by wide AIC/BIC margins, indicating heavy tails. A negative-binomial model with month effects implies post-vaccine bookings are 6.5% shorter than restriction-era bookings, while pre-COVID bookings are 16% shorter. In a two-part model at 28 nights, the booking share of month-plus stays rose from 1.43% (pre) to 2.72% (restriction) and settled at 2.04% (post); conditional means among long stays were about 55-60 nights. Thus the higher average reflects more long stays rather than longer long stays. A…
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