4 ms·

Airbnb is one of those rare products that cracked open an entire world of possibilities for me. For the first time, I've gotten the chance to live as a local al

Airbnb is one of those rare products that cracked open an entire world of possibilities for me. For the first time, I've gotten the chance to live as a local all around the world, for even less money than at a hotel or sometimes even a hostel. Ordinary folks just didn't travel like this in the past, getting to know distant cities right from the ground floor. Adjustments should be made on a city-to-city basis, but you can't put the genie back in the bottle. The rewards are just too sweet! (For the record, I've mostly stayed in shared accommodations, since entire apartment rentals are very expensive for prolonged travel. It seems people are mostly OK with this side of Airbnb.)

extra88 9y ago
I think the market for shared accommodations will never be very big and the presence of an owner/tenant can keep neighbor-affecting bad behavior in check.
pixelmonkey 9y ago
> Ordinary folks just didn't travel like this in the past, getting to know distant cities right from the ground floor. Not quite true. In 2005, I did a long road trip in Italy. In that year, in almost every gas station in Italy, you could buy books with listings of local B&B's and "agriturismo" locales, which were essentially B&B's that were on farms and usually included a farm dinner with the hosting family, in addition to breakfast and accommodations. The cost to stay in these places was always a fraction of the hotel. It was a little inconvenient to use them though: you needed the books, and then you needed to dial the owners and ask if their place was available ahead of your arrival. You can imagine why this market exists in Italy: the hotels in every city are geared toward tourists (thus, lots of $$$) but Italians have such a beautiful (and geographically small) country, and they needed a way to do local tourism at affordable prices. I imagine the fact that you needed to call the owners (and speak Italian to them) acted as a barrier against tourists. I am a huge fan of Airbnb. I point this out, however, because I always personally viewed Airbnb less as an "improvement over hotel travel", and instead as a "platform that brought efficiency to the B&B market". Basically, B&Bs were a great way to travel, but most people didn't hassle to do so, because inventory/availability was too hard to scan, and it usually required at least a little local knowledge. In 2005, if you had done a road trip through Italy like I had, while seeing the kinds of transactions going online, you could have put 2 and 2 together and realized this needed to exist as an international service. But, even I didn't see it, then!
- Mediterraneo10 9y ago
  AirBnB is significantly different from those B&Bs in that with B&Bs, you had to interact with the family, that family may have scrutinized your coming and going, and you had to eat their food which may have been inferior to other local dining options. Now that AirBnB is dominated by people renting out a flat that they themselves don’t live in, your only interaction with the owner is just picking up the keys (and a lot of AirBnB hosts you never actually see, since they leave the keys somewhere for you to pick up). I love staying in various cities for prolonged amounts of time and soaking up local culture, but I definitely don’t want to be forced to interact with the proprietors. I’d rather just get out into the city and interact with the people I choose. There is a lot more privacy and choice involved in AirBnB, which is essential to enjoyable travels.
- spraak 9y ago
  I think the above poster means what you experienced in Italy on a global scale. That is, yes it already in a form in Italy, but now you can do that almost anywhere.
- Camillo 9y ago
  > You can imagine why this market exists in Italy: the hotels in every city are geared toward tourists (thus, lots of $$$) but Italians have such a beautiful (and geographically small) country, and they needed a way to do local tourism at affordable prices. I imagine the fact that you needed to call the owners (and speak Italian to them) acted as a barrier against tourists. That makes no sense. Of course Italians stay in hotels, and there are one-star hotels for those traveling on a budget, and hostels for young people, same as in any country. B&Bs were introduced later, as an even cheaper option. In Italy they are literally called "bed and breakfast", in English, because they are not a local invention: they were borrowed from the impoverished and benighted country known as the UK. The agriturismi were not invented as a way to keep tourists out: you may notice that they have "tourism" right in the name. Quite the opposite: owners of small farms were seeking a new revenue stream, and took advantage of the fact that the Italian countryside is quite attractive in its own right. Think hills with small farms, villages, churches and castles, not miles and miles of corn. The idea was to visit the countryside itself, not to take a fifty miles detour to visit a city because the hotels are too expensive.
irq11 9y ago
Your segment of the market is almost certainly a small one. In many cities where I've stayed in AirBnBs, whole-unit rentals dominated the listings, and these were always in touristy parts of town. As you'd expect, the "professionals" optimize by putting their listings in the parts of town with the heaviest tourist traffic. AirBnB is one of those ideas that works fine at a small scale, but becomes pathological as it grows. There's no inconsistency in this observation. The backpacker tail of the market is small, and by definition, broke. As the idea pushes into the middle of the bell curve to reach scale, the offerings will become more like hotels.
- graeme 9y ago
  I've used plenty of whole apartment airbnbs, and it's not the same as a hotel. As the OP said, you get a fridge/kitchen etc, and the host can trust you based on your rating. I agree past a certain scale it can be troublesome. But I don't think it is like a hotel.

extra88 9y ago

I think the market for shared accommodations will never be very big and the presence of an owner/tenant can keep neighbor-affecting bad behavior in check.

pixelmonkey 9y ago

> Ordinary folks just didn't travel like this in the past, getting to know distant cities right from the ground floor. Not quite true. In 2005, I did a long road trip in Italy. In that year, in almost every gas station in Italy, you could buy books with listings of local B&B's and "agriturismo" locales, which were essentially B&B's that were on farms and usually included a farm dinner with the hosting family, in addition to breakfast and accommodations. The cost to stay in these places was always a fraction of the hotel. It was a little inconvenient to use them though: you needed the books, and then you needed to dial the owners and ask if their place was available ahead of your arrival. You can imagine why this market exists in Italy: the hotels in every city are geared toward tourists (thus, lots of $$$) but Italians have such a beautiful (and geographically small) country, and they needed a way to do local tourism at affordable prices. I imagine the fact that you needed to call the owners (and speak Italian to them) acted as a barrier against tourists. I am a huge fan of Airbnb. I point this out, however, because I always personally viewed Airbnb less as an "improvement over hotel travel", and instead as a "platform that brought efficiency to the B&B market". Basically, B&Bs were a great way to travel, but most people didn't hassle to do so, because inventory/availability was too hard to scan, and it usually required at least a little local knowledge. In 2005, if you had done a road trip through Italy like I had, while seeing the kinds of transactions going online, you could have put 2 and 2 together and realized this needed to exist as an international service. But, even I didn't see it, then!

Mediterraneo10 9y ago
AirBnB is significantly different from those B&Bs in that with B&Bs, you had to interact with the family, that family may have scrutinized your coming and going, and you had to eat their food which may have been inferior to other local dining options. Now that AirBnB is dominated by people renting out a flat that they themselves don’t live in, your only interaction with the owner is just picking up the keys (and a lot of AirBnB hosts you never actually see, since they leave the keys somewhere for you to pick up). I love staying in various cities for prolonged amounts of time and soaking up local culture, but I definitely don’t want to be forced to interact with the proprietors. I’d rather just get out into the city and interact with the people I choose. There is a lot more privacy and choice involved in AirBnB, which is essential to enjoyable travels.
spraak 9y ago
I think the above poster means what you experienced in Italy on a global scale. That is, yes it already in a form in Italy, but now you can do that almost anywhere.
Camillo 9y ago
> You can imagine why this market exists in Italy: the hotels in every city are geared toward tourists (thus, lots of $$$) but Italians have such a beautiful (and geographically small) country, and they needed a way to do local tourism at affordable prices. I imagine the fact that you needed to call the owners (and speak Italian to them) acted as a barrier against tourists. That makes no sense. Of course Italians stay in hotels, and there are one-star hotels for those traveling on a budget, and hostels for young people, same as in any country. B&Bs were introduced later, as an even cheaper option. In Italy they are literally called "bed and breakfast", in English, because they are not a local invention: they were borrowed from the impoverished and benighted country known as the UK. The agriturismi were not invented as a way to keep tourists out: you may notice that they have "tourism" right in the name. Quite the opposite: owners of small farms were seeking a new revenue stream, and took advantage of the fact that the Italian countryside is quite attractive in its own right. Think hills with small farms, villages, churches and castles, not miles and miles of corn. The idea was to visit the countryside itself, not to take a fifty miles detour to visit a city because the hotels are too expensive.

irq11 9y ago

Your segment of the market is almost certainly a small one. In many cities where I've stayed in AirBnBs, whole-unit rentals dominated the listings, and these were always in touristy parts of town. As you'd expect, the "professionals" optimize by putting their listings in the parts of town with the heaviest tourist traffic. AirBnB is one of those ideas that works fine at a small scale, but becomes pathological as it grows. There's no inconsistency in this observation. The backpacker tail of the market is small, and by definition, broke. As the idea pushes into the middle of the bell curve to reach scale, the offerings will become more like hotels.

graeme 9y ago
I've used plenty of whole apartment airbnbs, and it's not the same as a hotel. As the OP said, you get a fridge/kitchen etc, and the host can trust you based on your rating. I agree past a certain scale it can be troublesome. But I don't think it is like a hotel.