Billionaire Airbnb Co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky told Yahoo Finance that the coronavirus outbreak has permanently altered travel preferences across the globe in ways that will shape the hospitality industry going forward.

“Travel has changed forever,” says Chesky, whose company suffered hundreds of millions in losses and laid off a quarter of its staff in the aftermath of the outbreak. “The world of travel as we knew it in January is never coming back.”

Antsy city dwellers seeking to escape their Covid-19 refuges are road-tripping to nearby vacation rentals in surprisingly strong numbers, showing the first signs of life for an industry that essentially ground to a halt in March.

“People, after having been stuck in their homes for a few months, do want to get out of their houses; that’s really, really clear,” Airbnb Inc. Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky said in an interview. “But they don’t necessarily want to get on an airplane and are not yet comfortable leaving their countries.”