A New Breed of French Hoteliers Has a Budget Response to Airbnb
Photo Credit: A public space in the Hotel Paradis in Paris, France. The hotel is one of a new breed of well-designed budget properties in the city. Hotel Paradis
Skift Take
A beautiful, well designed room in Paris for 150 euros a night? This might be an interesting counter to the rise of Airbnb in the city.
Colin Nagy, head of strategy at Fred & Farid, a global advertising agency, writes this opinion column for Skift on hospitality, innovation, and business travel. “On Experience” dissects customer-centric experiences and innovation across hospitality, aviation, and beyond.
For the past several years, the Paris hotel market had an acute gap. On one side of the market, there’s the beautiful, high end hotels: The newly refurbished Ritz, the Park Hyatt, a new Peninsula, a recently reopened Hotel de Crillon, Le Meurice, and countless others catering to those that don’t have to look too closely at the price.
Then, on the other there’s the smaller, mom and pop hotels and the cheaper, budget options in the city. The choice has largely been between beautiful and pricey, or affordable with terrible decor.
Airbnb has quickly filled the gap In the middle of the price spectrum, having grown exponentially to around 65,000 listings in Paris today. But, a
