Airbnb News

This is a good indicator of how millennials could still be retained by the organized hotel sector, though of course catering to the specific needs of this demographic is still important.

Making Airbnb lawful might actually give regular citizens a chance at using it to make an extra buck, but to say that's the gross majority of its hosts in London, or any city, is a tale of two very different cities.

Airbnb's growth in the market isn't just a concern for supposed direct competitor Homeway, but also bigger online travel booking players as well as established hospitality companies. While revenues are still much smaller than others, its growth rate is surely beating everyone else by magnitudes.

In the HomeAway-Airbnb-Booking.com love triangle, it is maverick Airbnb and Booking.com that actually have the most in common in terms of their preference for instantly confirmable bookings. And, like a scorned lover, HomeAway has been ratcheting up its criticisms of Booking.com.

Until Airbnb gets its regulatory issues settled it will need to raise money like this rather than going for an IPO.

New York Times is a good barometer of mainstream zeitgeist beyond the bubble of tech startup world, and Airbnb has crossed the threshold of being a consumer brand known around the world in a relatively short time. This NYT "timeline" shows how, in its own arcane way.

Welcome to a lodging company, HomeAway, that is NOT targeting millennials but instead is going after "whole families." It has little to do with short-term rentals and it may turn out to be short-term thinking.

While hosts have to shell out the permit fee, it's sites like Airbnb who stand to lose more, at least for now, from hosts' unwillingness to comply as these sites face fines unless they force hosts to obey local laws.

The Priceline Group won't admit it but its management is feeling the heat from Expedia Inc.'s moves. Adding Orbitz Worldwide to Expedia Inc. will only increase Expedia's inorganic growth, which is growth nonetheless.

The sharing economy has spread to every sector of the travel industry and every corner of the globe pushing it from a small community of global explorers to a full-fledged industry needing regulation and customer protection like the traditional market it sought to complement.