Airbnb Considers OTAs as Biggest Competitors, Not Hotels
Photo Credit: A general view of Airbnb signage during Airbnb Open LA on November 17, 2016 in Los Angeles, California. Airbnb / Mike Windle/Getty Images
Skift Take
How Airbnb sees itself matters, for many reasons it lists in its IPO documents. Fascinating read into the mind of a big disruptor in the global travel sector.
How Airbnb sees itself matters, not only for the future of the company but how markets and competitors react to such a globally disruptive force that has emerged out of nowhere in the last decade.
As Airbnb has filed its most detailed look at till-now-private company in its IPO documents, and as part of our ongoing coverage of the upcoming listing, we thought it is worth peeking into what Airbnb describes as its competition and compare that to what outside analysts have traditionally considered Airbnb and its competition.
Let's start with what analysts and travel industry have considered its competition: traditional lodging players, as in hotel giants like Marriott, Hilton, IHG, Accor etc, which on the face of it seems like a logical one but only a surface level. But if you dig deeper, as our Skift Senior Research Senior Analyst Seth Borko did last month, you get a different and we believe a better picture of who Airbnb competes against: the online travel booking players like Boo
