Airbnb and Vrbo Significantly Outperformed the Hotel Industry But for How Long?
Photo Credit: Short-term rentals are outperforming hotels in select global markets, but a travel downturn in the fall stands to hurt both hospitality sectors. Airbnb / Airbnb
Skift Take
Short-term rentals may be outperforming the hotel industry through the peak summer leisure season, but a fall downturn in family vacations could extend the drag on performance to platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo.
While much of the global economy continues to reel from the catastrophic impact of coronavirus, at least one hospitality sector is enjoying a degree of the V-shaped recovery so many economists predicted — or at least hoped for.
Short-term rentals on services like Airbnb generally performed better than similar quality hotel competitors, according to an STR and AirDNA study of 15 urban markets and 12 regional destinations around the world. Revenue per available room — the hotel industry’s key performance metric — was down nearly 65 percent at hotels at the end of June.
But the performance indicator was only down by about 5 percent at short-term rentals.
“It was kind of a perfect storm of factors that hit hotels disproportionately than short-term rentals,” said Patrick Mayock, vice president of research and develo
