Hotels Survive Airbnb Disruption
by Jessica Montevago
Hotels are outperforming their online competitor. Photo: Marriott
A story in Seeking Alpha this week seems to indicate that Airbnb is not likely to kill off hotels. In fact, hotels are outperforming their online competitor.
Stockholders have been rushing to sell shares of hotel real-estate investment trusts out of fear Airbnb would take over the industry. But it seems that Airbnb’s impact on the market is not quite as great as many had feared.
“While we can no longer ignore the impact of Airbnb as a source of supply, there is reason to believe the actual supply impact is less than originally feared,” the article said.
The growth of Airbnb is already slowing down as many cities are cracking down on rentals through the site. Newly enacted laws in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco limit or prohibit the “illegal hotel” model of commercial use of short-term rental of apartment units.
Where Seeking Alpha had originally expected Airbnb to add as much as 2% of new supply to the market each year, it now has revised this outlook down to less than 1%.
