They recognize it exists. I'm even hearing podcast ads from Marriot or similar touting how much more reliable they are.
AirBnBs I've stayed in the past few years have all been janky, weird, and not really any cheaper than hotels. I don't have to do chores at hotels, and I can always get (and return) the key promptly. I've also been told on several occasions not to let anyone else in the building know I was an AirBnB guest. AirBnB used to be better, but the advent of "professional hosts" with many properties really degraded things. They often have the typical landlord mentality of expecting a lot of reward with little work or risk.
Likely because of the outliers. If you live in a "nice quiet neighbourhood" and an airbnb party house emerges, everyone freaks out.
Horror stories on sites like https://www.airbnbhell.com/ are remarkable. Clearly these aren't typical host/guest experiences, but they seem more societally acceptable at hotels vs houses.
I sometimes wonder why this doesn't happen a lot more often...
Anyway, people seem to be much more trustworthy, which is why airbnb is still going strong. Until more legislations make it illegal to rent out apartments as quasi-hotels...
Why would anyone believe that an Airbnb offers the same security, privacy protections, safety, and comfort of a hotel? I have only stayed in an Airbnb a few times ever because I can never justify staying in one over a hotel for these reasons. The product is so unpredictable in the sense that you really never know what you're going to get until you get there.
From the host perspective, I am still amazed that Airbnb has normalized letting complete strangers into your home.
My guess is that people go to AirBnB for the experience of meeting people, staying in an authentic locale, etc. It seems like a new disruptive product (which would also make it "inferior" to standard hotels).
AirBnB hosts are unrealistic with their expectations. The raising costs, ridiculous cleaning fees, absurd "house rules", etc. make AirBnB pretty much a no-go for me these days.
Hotels have great amenities, really good customer support, and not too much BS.
With AirBnB it's an absolute gamble if you're going to get a good host or a wannabe slumlord. I don't think this is AirBnB's fault though, just general human greed, wanting to make easy money by providing as little value as possible.
I've stayed in an AirBnB maybe a dozen times and always had some problem or other that I've been expected just to accept - because it's AirBnB and not an hotel?
I've stayed in lots more hotels and experienced fewer problems. The times I've had resulted in either a sincere apology or full refund (the last time for the 2 days stay rather than the one night I complained about).
I can see the advantage of AirBnB for a group of people who are willing to compromise in return for a cost saving but not much else.
I'd imagine there's a sizable group of people who think Airbnb is only worth it if the price (and maybe location) is significantly better than a hotel, and that seems to be less true as the company matures.
A majority of the airbnb hosts nowadays are professionally managed ones at this point. I would say out of my last 10 stays, only 2 of them were hosts who actually lived in them. Airbnb is essentially a hotel operation at this point.
For single travelers IMO there isn't a good reason to pick Airbnb over a hotel. But there are types of properties that aren't really available widely in hotel-form: the vacation house.
Want to gather with your family in a big house for some holiday? There isn't really anything else other than Airbnb (or Vrbo, which has many of the same issues). Some very heavily vacation-oriented places have hotels that rent out properties of that sort, but in most places this isn't an available product category.
Buuuut even with this said, I'm very hesitant to stay in Airbnbs nowadays.
I just had a terrible experience a month ago - rented a vacation house that had great reviews and looked great. Arrived after a red-eye flight and a long drive... and the lockbox code is wrong. The house is also in the woods so there was no cell reception, so drove a half hour to the nearest area with reception, contacted the host (hosts are never available on Airbnb, naturally), sorted that out, and got into the house... and it was filthy. Top to bottom filthy with air fresheners in every room to cover the smell.
Immediately left and booked a room at the local Hampton Inn, which was overall a far superior experience. Airbnb in all of their grace only gave me ~70% back despite y'know, a totally unusable product. I'm still out over ~$1,000 over the whole thing, and Airbnb seems entirely ok with... what feels a lot like fraud?
The reliability of the Airbnb experience is so poor that I'm at this point completely unwilling to hinge a family vacation on it. It's like rolling a 1d6 and needing to score 3 or above. Just way too risky.
Yeah, I've been in Airbnbs for the last 3ish years all over Africa and Asia and mostly haven't had any issues. Nothing like described in the article, but if a host tries anything even remotely fishy I just go straight to Airbnb and let them sort it out. In my limited experience, Airbnb has always been on my side as a guest rather than on the hosts side.
In all my travels, I've not seen hotels be even remotely competitive in price compared to an Airbnb, at least when staying for a month. Usually for the cost of a run-down hotel room I could have a great 1 bedroom apartment with a kitchen and washing machine.
I used to use AirBnB all the time. Lately I've switched back to using hotels almost exclusively. The camera/privacy thing is a big part of it. I empathize with the hosts to a degree - you don't want people doing outrageous things in your home. But the hosts want their cake and to eat it too. Don't rent out your home if you don't want the risk of people damaging it!
(As a minor aside, I've also noticed the quality of the places I've found on AirBnB has gone down. The homes I stayed at before I quit using it were not very clean (despite the fee!), things were broken, key retrieval was a pain etc. Hotels used to be much more expensive, but price/quality of experience is starting to get more competitive)
It's funny to me, because AirBnB runs in to all the same problems we had with hotels a hundred years ago. We have dozens of taxes, rules, regulations, building codes etc now for hotels. I imagine at some point it will be the same for AirBnBs. What's old is new.
I have stayed at 4 AirBnB properties over the past month or so. The first three were great. They were - almost literally bed and breakfasts, where I interacted with my hosts and they made me breakfast the next morning and were company in the evening.
Last week I stayed at one in NYC and it was honestly weird. The host wasn't there and just left the door unlocked and all the lights off - without saying as much in an AirBnB message. Some of the outlets did not have outlet covers, leaving wiring exposed etc...
Anyway, it's been clear for a very long time that the thing that you find from a hotel is completely lacking with AirBnB: Consistency.
On the flip side, should people be looking at AirBnB as a direct replacement for hotels? Obviously that is the operating thesis, but I think a better way to consider AirBnB is as a marketplace for Bed and Breakfast accommodations. All of the problems that are brought up go away if you think of it in that context.
So I've a bunch of friends than when traveling used to go to Hotels and now go to AirBnb. While anecdotical, this is more convincing than data from AirBnb cherry picked to show a seemingly hard to make point.
It's weird to read this and also see how hosts are absolutely pissed over Airbnb not doing anything about guests abusing hosts - trashing the place, making false claims, etc etc. It's almost like if Airbnb just doesn't do anything to resolve issues, both for hosts and guests.
All this said, my personal Airbnb experience was positive. Surely beats rental classifieds or searching Google Maps, and I'm not aware about any serious general-purpose alternatives. My issue is that hotels are simply conceptually (and practically) different - there's a huge difference between a proper rental house/apartment and a hotel room (though Airbnb goes there, it used to be good but today many listings aren't better if not worse than a hotel room now). Sure, hotel brands had realized this and started to offer some curated properties, but this is very uncommon.
AirBnB's advantage was how cheap it was compared to hotels and other accommodations. That advantage is pretty much gone now, so basically you get an expensive place, with horrific quality control. It's a roll of the dice.
I've gone back to hotels. The experience is streamlined. No janky lockboxes with codes that don't work, no unresponsive hosts (someone available 24/7 at most), places are cleaned on request, and other amenities are typically available right on site.
AirBnb sells feelings of authenticity, but it comes across in an uncanny-valley sort of way. I did an AirBnB cooking class experience in the suburbs of Mexico City. It was really fun, I got to meet a few great people, and it was in a lovely house. But how genuine are the host's laughs at my jokes when I'm paying him for the class? It doesn't feel real.
Staying at an AirBnB is a less homogenous than staying at the Hilton. There's a bit more risk involved (not necessarily safety, but cleanliness, noise, etc). Hotels, on the plus side, are run like businesses and feel more impersonal. It's more honest than an AirBnB experience in a way.
More to the point, I'm surprised the company keeps improving their product like this. It's not Dropbox or Yelp, which don't feel too different after 10 years.
I've never used AirBnb. However, when making online purchases (even for physical items) I don't have a lot of trust. Many systems (reviews, ratings, etc) are all too easily exploited. While the thought of staying at a stylish house is more appealing than a room at a hotel chain, I at least know what I am getting myself into. I've had my share of... not great rooms at hotels, but they typically make it right with a room switch or reimbursement. It doesn't sound like AirBnb is good at that.
AirBnBs I've stayed in the past few years have all been janky, weird, and not really any cheaper than hotels. I don't have to do chores at hotels, and I can always get (and return) the key promptly. I've also been told on several occasions not to let anyone else in the building know I was an AirBnB guest. AirBnB used to be better, but the advent of "professional hosts" with many properties really degraded things. They often have the typical landlord mentality of expecting a lot of reward with little work or risk.
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