Skift Take
Airbnb, with its roughly $24.5 billion valuation, would likely be too big for most of the online travel agencies to acquire but if they are forced to enter the sharing economy in a bigger way several years from now they always have the resources to buy their way in.
Officials at the Priceline Group and Expedia Inc. haven't felt compelled to jump into peer-to-peer apartment rentals despite the phenomenal growth of Airbnb over the last few years.
They are loathe to do so because of all of the legal and regulatory issues that would need to be sorted out, and the fact that the sharing economy doesn't pose a material threat in the next few years, according to a recent report from Morningstar that touches on Priceline, Expedia, and the sharing economy.
The Morningstar report, written by senior equity analyst Dan Wasiolek, states that the competitive threat from Airbnb is "manageable for both Expedia and Priceline."
In fact, the report estimates that Airbnb is currently adversely impacting Priceline's and Expedia's booking growth about one-third of a percentage point and that could reach a little more than 1 percentage point by 2019.
Hardly a doom and gloom scenario.
Commenting on the economics of vacation home and apartment rentals during the Priceline Group's first quarter of 2015 earnings call on May 7, CEO Darren Huston
