Why Airbnb Won’t Be Great at Selling Hotel Rooms
Photo Caption: A hotel room listing in Brooklyn, NY on Airbnb.
Skift Take
Airbnb's business model, which includes a traveler-booking fee, wouldn't be competitive when competing for hotel-room bookings against Expedia and Booking.com, a new report argues. But business models aren't set in stone the last time we checked.
Investors have been consumed with the notion that Airbnb is gunning for the online travel agencies and that it will eventually turn from apartment rentals to hotels and steal those big, fat hotel margins and profits from Expedia and Booking.com.
A new analyst report attempts to shoot down that argument. Financial services firm PiperJaffray argues that Airbnb would not be adept at selling hotel rooms over the next five years, likely won't pursue it heavily, and therefore will not have a significant adverse impact on online travel agencies' room-night bookings.
In addition, hotel expansion isn't part of Airbnb's core strategy as it focuses instead on expansion in China, business travel and vacation rentals, the report states.
The PiperJaffray report, "Airbnb Becoming a Powerful Force in Travel, But Impact to OTAs Minimal," written by Michael Olson and Samuel Kemp, forecasts that while Airbnb will make share gains in vacation rentals, supplementing its foothold in urban, shared-s
