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Does AirBnB really have a negative impact on hotel sales?

I am frequently in contact with hotel owners and I hear too often phrases like:

“AirBnB is stealing all our customers! “

“It is unfair competition! “

“They do not have the same expenses as the hotels! “

Etc.

With a few exceptions, hotels are extremely angry about AirBnB.

For those who read me regularly, you know that I love to analyze and get to the bottom of things. Also, I asked myself this question:

Does AirBnB really have a negative impact on hotel sales? And should we really blame it for all the problems which we currently blame it for?

Happy reading!

What is AirBnB?

Let’s first define what AirBnB is. Originally, it was a platform for rental and reservation of housing between individuals.

For years, this system has been used to give the lessee the feeling of being “at home”. The marketing mainly conveyed this message and this image. There was no competition for hotel owners.

But it has quickly changed:

Number of searches for the word AirBnB on Google

By the end of 2014, early in 2015, the platform is democratized and users begin to become addicted. The graph below reflects this state of mind with a multiplication by 4 of the quantity of Internet users searching for the word “AirBnB” on Google. Is this the announcement of a decline in hotel business? From now on will the whole world reserve through AirBnB?

Not at all!

Let’s continue the comparisons and look at Booking and Expedia: the numbers are interesting:

The red line represents Internet users searching for the word “Booking” on Google and the yellow line those who search for the word “Expedia”. The blue line always represents “AirBnB”.

Booking continues to rise and undergoes absolutely no decline in traffic despite the “AirBnB Boom”. Expedia also seems little affected.

First conclusion:

Internet users have not decided to stop using conventional reservation methods in favor of AirBnB.