Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from April, 2016

Airbnb and the Traditional Lodging Industry

Currently,  Airbnb  has more than 2 million listings in 34,000 cities in 190 countries, among which 1,400 are castles. More than 60 million travelers have stayed in an Airbnb before. The company is now valued at $25.5 billion,  as suggested by The Wall Street Journal . Meanwhile, the world's largest lodging company (Marriott and Starwood combined) only has 5,500 owned or franchised hotels with 1.1 million rooms around the world,  according to The New York Times . It is thus not a surprise to hear hoteliers sharing their concerns about the threat created by room-sharing websites such as Airbnb and Homeaway.  So, is Airbnb a threat to the traditional lodging industry? It is probably not a threat yet, as suggested in my earlier discussion - " Is Airbnb really a threat to the traditional lodging industry? " Then, how much impact does Airbnb have on the lodging industry? I did some research, which suggests the growth of multiunit and full-time operators on Airbnb could bec