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> Airbnb rooms are usually more pleasant than the lower quality hotels a lot of businesses book. I suggest you browse areas with high AirBNB usage. In NYC, a n

> Airbnb rooms are usually more pleasant than the lower quality hotels a lot of businesses book. I suggest you browse areas with high AirBNB usage. In NYC, a nice AirBNB will cost roughly the same as the equivalent hotel room. > Once it becomes socially normal in larger corporations, a lot of employees will ask to be booked with airbnb. This is unlikely. The only reason to choose AirBNB is price, and the low price options in popular destinations are rarely particularly nice. As a corporation, we're willing to spend the money necessary to be guaranteed determinism. Nobody in the travel department would want to deal with rebooking an employee if their AirBNB experience turned out to be poor. I can book an employee a room at The Intercontinental and I know that there will be no issues, and we can worry about things that actually matter, like getting work done.

tptacek 14y ago
What you say about Airbnb vs. hotel costs in NYC is wildly not my experience. At the high end, the rooms available on Airbnb simply aren't available in hotels at all; I'd wager, if you did your best at apples-apples, Airbnb is roughly half as expensive as a hotel room. The nondeterminism thing with Abnb is a good point. I've always figured that if something fell through, I'd just book a same-night hotel, but it was a concern.
- flatline3 14y ago
  I'm not sure what you qualify as high-end, but our different experiences may be a factor of differing price points.
  - tptacek 14y ago
    Two NYC-area Abnb rentals, off the top of my head: * A 4-bedroom 2-storey attached (townhouse-style) house in W'burg, less than a block from the Bedford stop; full kitchen, back yard(!). Cost less than any 3-star pair of adjoining bedrooms we could find --- and we booked 2 months in advance. * A full-kitchen king bed studio in Chelsea, for ~150/night. The last one is from a few months ago, the other from last year. By the way: both of these feel like textbook cases of the kind of situation where Abnb is a win for everyone involved. The owner of the house was picky about us, checked in on us while we were there, and was renting a whole building to one party. The Chelsea apartment was its occupant's primary residence; they were renting it out while themselves traveling. I think it's the situations where people are literally running full-time businesses on top of Abnb where we start to run into trouble.
graeme 14y ago
My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting. Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building. Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins. NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories. In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.
graeme 14y ago
My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting. Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building with its own style. Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins. NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories. In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.

tptacek 14y ago

What you say about Airbnb vs. hotel costs in NYC is wildly not my experience. At the high end, the rooms available on Airbnb simply aren't available in hotels at all; I'd wager, if you did your best at apples-apples, Airbnb is roughly half as expensive as a hotel room. The nondeterminism thing with Abnb is a good point. I've always figured that if something fell through, I'd just book a same-night hotel, but it was a concern.

flatline3 14y ago
I'm not sure what you qualify as high-end, but our different experiences may be a factor of differing price points.
- tptacek 14y ago
  Two NYC-area Abnb rentals, off the top of my head: * A 4-bedroom 2-storey attached (townhouse-style) house in W'burg, less than a block from the Bedford stop; full kitchen, back yard(!). Cost less than any 3-star pair of adjoining bedrooms we could find --- and we booked 2 months in advance. * A full-kitchen king bed studio in Chelsea, for ~150/night. The last one is from a few months ago, the other from last year. By the way: both of these feel like textbook cases of the kind of situation where Abnb is a win for everyone involved. The owner of the house was picky about us, checked in on us while we were there, and was renting a whole building to one party. The Chelsea apartment was its occupant's primary residence; they were renting it out while themselves traveling. I think it's the situations where people are literally running full-time businesses on top of Abnb where we start to run into trouble.

graeme 14y ago

My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting. Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building. Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins. NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories. In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.

graeme 14y ago

My argument isn't based on price. Some people will always prefer hotels. You know exactly what you're getting. Others prefer the airbnb experience, even at the same price. You get to meet new people, cook your own food if you want (anyone eating a special diet wants this), you often get to stay in a smaller building with its own style. Some people hate all that stuff. But less than 100% of current hotel bookers. Enough people love what airbnb offers that this should start making a difference at the margins. NYC may have more problems. I'm in Montreal, where there are a lot of renters but few horror stories. In any case, the airbnb review system is getting better. People will learn how to avoid the dumps.