Why is Airbnb keen on a partnership with Sao Paulo?

Home rental firm Airbnb has entered into a partnership with Brazil’s state of Sao Paulo, to encourage tourism once the coronavirus crisis has passed.

Virus hotspot Sao Paulo is the first destination in Latin America chosen by Airbnb as part of a global push to revive its business as authorities ease coronavirus-related restrictions on tourism.

“Sao Paulo is at the core of our Brazil strategy,” Airbnb’s director of governmental and institutional relations for Latin America, Flvia Matos, told Reuters in an interview.

Airbnb will have an exclusive page on Sao Paulo state’s destinations in its platform and will also share with the local government, data and information on what is happening elsewhere in the globe.

Brazil on Thursday passed two grim milestones: 40,000 COVID-19 deaths and some 800,000 coronavirus cases. In the wider Latin America region, the death toll is at 70,000.

Despite the rising toll Brazil’s two largest cities —Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro — reopened shopping malls.

The UN Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) fears the crisis could provoke “the worst recession in history” in the region, which has become the virus epicentre.

“We’re worried the region could come out of this crisis with more debt, poorer, hungrier and with more unemployment. And most of all, angry,” said ECLAC general secretary Alicia Barcena.