6 ms·

Airbnb vs. Hotels: A Price Comparison

159 points by jejune06 13y ago

walexander 13y ago
I stayed at my first AirBnB last week, in Cancun, MX. It was $29/night for an entire apartment. I spent the last day of the trip at a resort for $120 (equal to my entire stay at the ABnB) and found it lacking comparatively. I'm sure the experiences can be hit or miss, but I'm definitely hooked.
ISL 13y ago
These bar charts would be even more useful with errorbars! Priceonomics has the data - it's easy to compute either the standard deviation or (low, average, high). Same space, more information/context!
- omarish 13y ago
  Good point. We tried to keep the visualizations simple because this was our first post using d3.js. Will think about adding an option to show errorbars next time around though. Thanks for the feedback.
  - gjreda 13y ago
    Pretty impressive for a first post with d3. Really nicely done.
    - omarish 13y ago
      Thanks! I was struggling with d3 until I focused on understanding data joins. It's not too hard once you really figure that part out. Here are the two pages that I think explain them best: - http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/circle.html http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/circle.html - http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/bar-2.html http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/bar-2.html
- deleted 13y ago
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Aloisius 13y ago
This is not exactly an apples to apples comparison. They're comparing the median room rate of hotels to Airbnb. However, your average Airbnb apartment and the average hotel room are nothing alike. Most of the Airbnb's I've used are far closer to what I'd expect in a suite at a moderately nice hotel. If you compare that, the price of two diverges immensely. Just recently I spent three days on a 60 ft barge on the Seine in Paris opposite the Louvre. There is really no comparison to even a high-end hotel there (and I've stayed in several in Paris), but it was maybe 30% of the cost of a comparable experience I'd find for that location and living space size. I could be an abnormality in my usage of Airbnb. I actually pay about what I'd expect to for a standard hotel room. I just expect what I'd get in a suite minus room service.
- toomuchtodo 13y ago
  Would you be willing to send/provide the link to this barge you stayed on? I'm taking my wife to Europe (last major trip before children), and I would absolutely love for her to have this experience.
  - Aloisius 13y ago
    Send me an email. jordan at zenzen dt org. I've stayed in plenty of other Airbnb's in Paris too. So far, I haven't gone wrong. This was a little more expensive than normal (but we had company staying in the other two small cabins so and really utilized the deck on top since Pont des Arts is one of the best views of the sunset in Paris and it is docked right there) and I happen to love boats. If you don't like a little gentle rocking, it may not be for you.
    - toomuchtodo 13y ago
      Email sent!
- untog 13y ago
  Most of the Airbnb's I've used are far closer to what I'd expect in a suite at a moderately nice hotel I think that AirBnB operates very differently at different price points. Once you're paying more than $x, you're right- you basically get whole apartments. And below $x you're paying less than you could ever expect for a hotel room. But in the middle is this awkward area where you're paying a relatively decent amount to stay in someone's spare room, and have to deal with the extra complications that brings but without the larger benefits.
hawkharris 13y ago
I just had a very bad experience with AirBnB. A host posted pictures of an entirely different apartment. In the real apartment the electrical outlets were falling out of the walls and the windows were so rusty that they wouldn't shut. (The place was also expensive.) But there's always a gamble with "collaborative consumption," so it's not the end of the world. And I've been very satisfied with other AirBnB experiences.
- ISL 13y ago
  Sometimes hotels underwhelm too. It's (unfortunately, from a measurement perspective) a matter of degree.
- jobowoo 13y ago
  Did you notify AirBnb? Did they rectify the situation?
  - hawkharris 13y ago
    I ended up confronting the owner face-to-face about all the issues with the apartment — basically telling her it wasn't ready for rent. I told her I probably wouldn't leave a negative review as long as she fixed the problems with the listing. (She was new to renting, so I wanted to give her some slack, even though she was kinda dishonest.)
- alekseyk 13y ago
  Should have called the owner, AirBnB and your credit card company. In that order.
deleted 13y ago
[deleted]
ChuckMcM 13y ago
And this is why the hospitality industry is organizing against them. I love the AirBnB idea and the implementation. There is a dark side however. Hotel organizations have historically been unable to change quickly, and operate on pretty thin margins. So the existence of a significant quantity of AirBnB rentals in a market does the equivalent of the Federal Reserve 'stress test' on weak banks, except it isn't simulated. I am really on the fence about what that means. On the one hand it means a number of hotel properties will come on the market at distressed properties, on the other it means there will be a huge gap between really cheap motels and really high end hotels. One thought was to buy up a mid-range hotel property and convert it into "Tech Suites" where for each pair of rooms connected by a door, one side stayed a hotel room and the other side became a small office. My local Sunnyvale city supervisor isn't completely against the idea but they are dubious about a mixed living/commercial zone at the scale of a motel/small hotel.
- jotto 13y ago
  2 other common reasons to organize against airbnb are 1) neighborhoods don't like transient guests when their expectation was that the neighborhood were permanent residents and 2) airbnb is avoiding state taxes http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/28/airbnbs-tax-and-tenant-law-violations-headed-hearings http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/28/airbnbs-tax-and-tena... http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newtechcity/blogs/new-tech-city-blog/2013/feb/05/nyc-tells-airbnb-hosts-dont-get-too-cosy/ http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newtechcity/blogs/new-tech-city-bl...
- deleted 13y ago
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- brudgers 13y ago
  We had a "weekend rental" in our neighborhood - it was not listed through AirBnB. What did it mean? Well, the street became a hotel parking lot. The house became a place to throw a party for forty out-of-town guests, and the neighborhood residents...well at $500 a night why should a renter give a fuck about them? The couple hooking up on the down-low, well they sent the brats outside during morning nookie time. The kids entertained themselves by throwing rocks at the neighbor's car in her driveway. The three families staying for a youth baseball tournament - their kids swung from Jimmy's backboard until the rim popped out. The six guys attending their reunion sat on the hoods of their cars till the wee hours drinking beer and tossing the empties. The business model shifts the costs of hotel use unto surrounding properties. Next week, however, our absentee landlord gets their day in court to explain their violations of the zoning regulations. Hopefully the threat of jailtime will make an impression.
guelo 13y ago
I've been nailed with cleaning fees on Airbnb that make the cost higher than nearby hotels, which always include cleaning in the price. The cleaning fees are listed out separately so they're easy to miss, I wonder if this article took them into account.
- awolf 13y ago
  The cleaning fees on Airbnb are listed in the final price you pay before confirming the reservation, so I'm not sure I see the difference. Edit: good points from those who responded below. For the sake of comparison these cleaning fees do matter and weren't accounted for.
  - ghshephard 13y ago
    Right - but when doing the price comparisons, did the article's author's include them in the comparison.
  - chollida1 13y ago
    > The cleaning fees on Airbnb are listed in the final price you pay before confirming the reservation, True, but when you browse by price they are not. I think this is the point the OP is trying to make. They are asking if the post got prices from a final confirmation, including cleaning fees, or if they got their prices form scraping the data on their website, which wouldn't include the cleaning fees. if its the latter then I've seen cleaning fees of $50 per stay which can close the gap considerably if your only staying for 1 or 2 nights.
Diamons 13y ago
I'm honestly one of the people absolutely against AirBnB. I'm in New York City. The counter argument here is that AirBnB does not make a place a hotel but what we see all the time is direct comparisons between hotels and AirBnB.
mncolinlee 13y ago
The author forgot the single greatest cost savings I get out of traveling with AirBnB: having a kitchen. I usually learn a new local recipe or two while I'm on vacation in another city. While I still visit a couple restaurants if they serve local specialties or are well-known, I really appreciate the freedom to cook, stay healthier, and save money on meals.
angryasian 13y ago
In all honesty its hard to do a fair comparison as most people will find excellent deals on the many hotel deal sites (orbitz, priceline, etc). This can cut the cost of a hotel room's listed price to half in a lot of instances. I would think in a lot of cases a hotel room vs an airbnb room would almost be equal.
dekz 13y ago
I'll chime in with my Airbnb experience. There's always one out there that's going to bite you, I'm travelling around Europe and using AirBnb mostly. I've had great experiences with using them in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France. Then there is the outlier which makes you question using it at all. There is one thing you pay for in hotels and that is service and it is a requirement. With a hotel you won't ever be stranded in a foreign country, but with Airbnb it's possible. I recently booked a stay in Prague which seemed positive, with quite a large number of positive reviews. Normally with all my other airbnb stays, I contact the host many days before and organise a way to check in and a time. This has worked out well, we simply meet at a specified time, talk and get given the keys and shown around the place. Back to the story in Prague, I contact the host 4 days prior to check in and receive no reply for those 4 days. The listing on the website becomes 'disabled' and the last calendar activity of the host is 6 weeks ago. There are then reports saying that previous tenants where 'bumped' to a different apartment as there was a problem with the listed apartment. This raises alarm bells to me and the last thing I want to do is arrive in a foreign country and be left stranded. Which is exactly what happened. I contacted AirBNB a day prior to the event detailing the 'fishiness' via online medium and have only received automated replies. Luckily our host in a previous city had a friend who could arrange us a stay at short notice. Don't get me wrong, people are people and there are fantastic people out there. So really the price difference is a multitude of services, and how much you will risk being stranded or mislead.
- phillc73 13y ago
  Why would you be left stranded if this AirBnB booking fell through? Unless you had absolutely no money, what's to stop you booking a cheap hotel or hostel for the night? I've never used AirBnB and have no real plans to. However, I have traveled around Europe extensively, and some of the best times were when I simply arrived somewhere and then attempted to find accommodation. I rode my motorcycle from London to Spain, toured for two weeks and never booked a single hotel in advance (my GPS packed it in on the second day too, so I played with paper maps). Only once was the first hotel I entered unable to find me a room. I traveled around Sicily on public transport, mostly buses, a few trains and ferries. Again, I never booked accommodation in advance, always found somewhere and was never stranded.
CountHackulus 13y ago
For me, the only issue with AirBnB is that they want me to upload a picture of my passport. I don't care who's on the other end, you're not getting a picture of my passport. Because of this requirement I had to cancel my nice apartment reservation in Boston only to stay in a far more expensive hotel. But at least they didn't keep a picture of my passport on file.
peterwwillis 13y ago
It occurs to me that for about the same price you could reserve a private room in a hostel in many of these areas. Sure it lacks the charm of someone's apartment, but it also has the legal and cultural support that Airbnb is missing.
subpixel 13y ago
In my experience (~ 6 AirBnB stays) if cost is your major motivator, you're more likely to have a lousy AirBnB experience. I've stayed in NYC and in smaller markets in AirBnB places I selected for cost. Why pay $200+ when I can stay for $80 in someone's private room? Well, you get what you pay for, and when you pay less then a local hotel the things you miss are the things that hotel charges you for: cleanliness, privacy, and respect for your time. While reviews/recommendations are supposed to be a filter for quality, they're really something of an echo chamber on AirBnB. If you leave a host a negative review, they may do the same for you, and fear of being publicly labeled an undesirable guest is enough to keep most travelers mute. That said, once you start paying something roughly comparable to a hotel rate in a given city, they likelihood of you having a better experience increases. These are hosts who are basically running a side business and treat you like a customer. For better or worse, they charge you more to treat you better. I think it's the higher end AirBnB market that hotels should fear.
pdog 13y ago
> At an Airbnb, you get access to a kitchen, you can stay in a neighborhood with character (hotels tend to congregate around touristy areas), and you can stay at some pretty unique places. There are hotels in colorful neighborhoods with some pretty unique rooms. And how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out?
- auctiontheory 13y ago
  how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out? Most?
  - deleted 13y ago
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- pg 13y ago
  "how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out?" All those with small children, to start with.
  - pdog 13y ago
    Certainly budget-conscious people too. And some places have great local fish, meat, and produce markets.
  - VandyILL 13y ago
    Depends on whether I'm traveling or vacationing. For a brief vacation I'll probably eat out every meal. But if I'm traveling, I'll probably want to conserve money plus get tired of big meals. Even on a vacation that goes about a week long I'd probably eat in a kitchen a couple times if I could.
- state 13y ago
  Having access to a kitchen may be the main reason that I much prefer AirBnB when traveling. I can't stand being forced to eat every single meal out of the house during an entire trip.
rdl 13y ago
I'd rather stay in AirBnB than in a mediocre hotel in most markets, but a great hotel is still totally worth it to me. My personal AirBnB stays have been pretty varied. When I stayed in SF in 2008 it was awesome, because I ended up staying with a friend of the founders and then in the actual AirBnB corporate apartment and meeting one of the AirBnB guys. When I stayed in Japan, it was amazing -- the spare couch of a Thai expat living in Tokyo, who then introduced me to her friends, and we went out to do stuff a few times. An long-term expat from a culture I understood (Thailand) is an even better introduction to Japan than a Japanese national. But then I stayed in a few other places in Asia where it was a "regular low-end hotel or apartment rental" who relisted on AirBnB. I generally don't stay in hotels like that otherwise, and in comparison to 5 star luxury hotels, it was pretty weak, and IMO for 50% of the price, not worth it. I actually really like the "large high-end luxury hotel experience" -- being able to arrive at 3am to a fully staffed front desk, having 24h room service, knowing reliably exactly what the place will be like in advance, etc. And, if you have some third-party-paid stays and optimize for frequent stay points, the cost can be pretty reasonable (e.g. 10 x $60/night normal stays redeemed for 2 free $1000/night NYC NYE stays). I tried to use AirBnB for Hawaii, but couldn't find enough listings at the time; ended up using another similar service (VRBO?) and discovered some terrifying people. I'll try AirBnB more in markets where it's strong, and probably higher-end properties than I tried in the past, but I don't think it will destroy hotels.
unfletch 13y ago
I take a weeklong trip to San Francisco every few months -- a city with loads of Airbnb uptake. I used Airbnb for the first few trips and was happy with the apartments I rented, but I've stopped even looking at Airbnb because the booking process is such a pain. Every time I've used it there's been 24-72 hours of back and forth with a host before I even know whether I can reserve their place. Often I lose a day waiting to hear from a host only to find out their calendar wasn't up to date and it's not actually available. Hotels are more expensive, but booking one is trivially easy. That convenience is worth a lot to me.
- dhess 13y ago
  I've been having the same problem with Honolulu. In the last 3 weeks I've had 3 or 4 booking attempts declined because the host's calendar was not accurate. Airbnb folks: this drags your product down to the level of VRBO, Flipkey, etc., where spotty availability calendars creates a large disincentive to use the service.
- trustfundbaby 13y ago
  I was pro-airbnb-all-the-time till I booked a room that looked good in the photos but was in a shitty building in a shitty part of town ... (I was in a hurry and couldn't really do as much research as I normally would have). I was there for a nice relaxing vacation so it was quite a surprise and I wound up losing $500 because I immediately ended my reservation and used hotel tonight to get a better room for about the same price. With hotels, at least you generally get what you pay for, and you can rely on branding (brand names and star ratings) to get you most of the way there as well. So while I hope to use airbnb again, I'm quite chastened by the experience and am definitely more aware of the things I used to take for granted with booking hotels.
latchkey 13y ago
How about measuring the ability to even book a place in a city like NYC? I recently tried to find an apt for a 4 day stay in manhattan with my wife. I contacted 15 places on airbnb. I've got all the reputation stuff filled out. I've used airbnb before. I tried only contacting places with a history of good response times. I even upped my max to higher than a hotel room. $300-350 a night. Number of responses? Zero. I love the concept, but the reality is much different than everyone makes it seem.
- meritt 13y ago
  It's currently illegal for property owners to rent out their NYC places on AirBNB, so you're going to see dramatically lower response rates right now.
205guy 13y ago
I'm not a big fan of AirBnB, but I also think hotels have room to offer better services and compete better with home-stay options. Somebody already suggested live-work suites, but it doesn't have to be every room. Depending on the location, the hotel could have a percentage of working suites, or even a drop-in office not full of back-packers chatting on facetime for a reasonable rate. Same for kitchens: provide a number of kitchenette rooms or a useful kitchen for guest use--not just a crappy breakfast. Hotels could also offer a "home-stay" rate that does not include housekeeping on stays over 3 days--I'd go for that every time. On the other hand, AirBnB should be more like a hotel: collect all hotel and local taxes on every stay. It should also be a law for both hotels and home-stay websites to advertise only the full and final cost, including all taxes, cleaning fees, and so-called "resort fees."
adnrw 13y ago
Last time we were in Paris we stayed in a great hotel for five nights. This time we stayed in an apartment via AirBnB for a month for the same total amount of money. We did our research - found hotels willing to give us a discount for a month's stay, looked at other apartment rental agencies etc. but AirBnB was far and away the cheapest option for what we were after. The apartment was fantastic, exactly as described and in the condition shown in the photos. It was clean, the owner was extremely helpful during the planning and booking stages and met us at the apartment (at 11pm on Christmas night, no less) when we arrived in Paris. She provided cleaning at no extra charge - we arranged with the cleaner directly, who arrived half an hour before we left for the airport. Frankly, I couldn't fault the service. AirBnB staff were great (we had a billing issue early on that they resolved in minutes), the host was great, the apartment was great and the whole process was easy. Obviously there are trade-offs when staying in an apartment rather than a hotel, but from my experience they're more than worth it to save a significant amount of money.
venus 13y ago
AirBNB would never be able to survive in countries with a well-run "business hotel" culture. I frequently travel to Japan and usually stay at a business hotel chain like Dormy Inn or Richmond - the price is rarely above $80/night and the rooms are perfectly fine. No Sofitel, sure, but about Ibis level. And Dormy Inn has an onsen in every hotel! If a decent hotel room is ~$80 then I wouldn't even think of using AirBNB and I doubt I'm alone. I have no idea why hotels in other countries are so damn expensive.
- jpatokal 13y ago
  That's all well and good if you're a solo business traveler happy to sleep in a cubicle. But if you've got the wife and kids, one of whom's a toddler who needs some space to run around and the other a baby just starting his solids so you need to boil and mash veggies, I can tell you from personal experience it's damned hard to find a decent place to stay. Short-stay apartments haven't really caught on in Japan: your choice is basically either tiny business hotels, or renting an apartment ("weekly mansion") for a month-plus. Unfortunately Airbnb's still quite limited in Tokyo (very few Japanese people seem to know about it), but I'd go for one in a heartbeat if the location was decent.
  - robin_reala 13y ago
    I rented a nice apartment for a week in Shibuya the last time I was there for 2/3rds the price of the hotels we’d been staying in. They do exist, even if the range of options is a little limited.
  - snogglethorpe 13y ago
    Business hotels are not "cubicles" in most cases, they're perfectly adequate for 95% of travelers, and there's a wide range of size/quality/budget tradeoffs. Sure if you're a traveling circus and need room to set up your trapeze, then maybe you need more room—but so what? In that case, you pay a bit more and get a somewhat larger room. Options exist, even for odd cases like yours. The cool thing in places like Japan is that you actually have a choice whereas in places like NYC, you have far less. For that reason I dread visiting the states anytime I don't have a friend I can stay with or something. The U.S., especially, could really do with a big shakeup of its dysfunctional hotel culture. And its dysfunctional transportation culture. And ... well you get the idea...
tzury 13y ago
Here is my "experience" with AirBNB: I had to be 5 days (4 nights) in La-Defense[1] near Paris for an hacking marathon along with my co-founder who lives right there. AirBNB was my default choice, and I manged to spot a nice (according to the pictures) small apartment in that area, with WiFi etc. I booked, and thought all is well. Later on, say, 12 or 24 hours or so, I get a message that the owner has rejected me (no reason specified). I switch to Hotels, and managed to find a much better suite, in a far nicer environment for a little cheaper than that apartment, I think it was via booking.com. I don't think I will ever check this options again, as for me, the possibility of being rejected later on, with no reason, while flights and meetings are already booked, means a risk, I would not dare take. of curse this is my own single experience, and there are thousands of travelers who gets there BnB solution every day and all are happy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense
evadne 13y ago
I complained to Airbnb once about a dirty and grimy bathtub. They said: > As every property, guest and host is different and has different expectations and ideas of a level of acceptable cleanliness, it is very difficult to have a fully standardised workflow on cleanliness. What might be normal or acceptable to one person, may not be for another. Our hosting obligations specify these things, but obviously, what one person considers 'properly cleaned' is very different from another - you can read about the hosting obligations here - https://www.airbnb.com/policies#host_obligations https://www.airbnb.com/policies#host_obligations Airbnb is more work, more risk, more variability, and less certainty. If you’re staying at a hotel and something doesn’t work out, you can usually get another room or at least have it looked at. If the place you just booked on Airbnb does not work out, you’re out of luck. Great customer support does not change the fact that it’s a necessity because incidents just happen. When you’re hit by a problem, you’re not a statistic. I’ve got my fair shade of apparently unwashed linen, moldy-smelling crack shacks, pile of shoes randomly dumped in a coat closet, exposed wiring, blood stain in the bathtub, a random pot house hosting a skludgy Aussie drunkard, and a basement suite with a junked fridge outside of it. For the record, I’ve also got a fair amount of places with fabulous views, hosts who can’t be any nicer, and impeccably clean floors. Booking with Airbnb is like gambling with your life quality in general. You have to be extremely cautious and meticulously expend a great amount of effort just to make sure you’re booking a place that’s actually good. When it’s good it’s really good. When it’s bad it’s hellishly awful. Airbnb is sometimes much cheaper, but that’s possibly all it is to me.
ry0ohki 13y ago
The biggest thing this is missing is the taxes. Cities love to gouge travelers on taxes. A $250 hotel room has as much as a 10-15% tax on it typically.
tixocloud 13y ago
I can understand that price may be the most important factor but I feel that the article lacks a more exhaustive comparative analysis - namely considering other factors and risks that are important when a person looks for a room

159 points by jejune06 13y ago

I stayed at my first AirBnB last week, in Cancun, MX. It was $29/night for an entire apartment. I spent the last day of the trip at a resort for $120 (equal to my entire stay at the ABnB) and found it lacking comparatively. I'm sure the experiences can be hit or miss, but I'm definitely hooked.

ISL 13y ago

These bar charts would be even more useful with errorbars! Priceonomics has the data - it's easy to compute either the standard deviation or (low, average, high). Same space, more information/context!

omarish 13y ago
Good point. We tried to keep the visualizations simple because this was our first post using d3.js. Will think about adding an option to show errorbars next time around though. Thanks for the feedback.
- gjreda 13y ago
  Pretty impressive for a first post with d3. Really nicely done.
  - omarish 13y ago
    Thanks! I was struggling with d3 until I focused on understanding data joins. It's not too hard once you really figure that part out. Here are the two pages that I think explain them best: - http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/circle.html http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/circle.html - http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/bar-2.html http://mbostock.github.io/d3/tutorial/bar-2.html
deleted 13y ago
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Aloisius 13y ago

This is not exactly an apples to apples comparison. They're comparing the median room rate of hotels to Airbnb. However, your average Airbnb apartment and the average hotel room are nothing alike. Most of the Airbnb's I've used are far closer to what I'd expect in a suite at a moderately nice hotel. If you compare that, the price of two diverges immensely. Just recently I spent three days on a 60 ft barge on the Seine in Paris opposite the Louvre. There is really no comparison to even a high-end hotel there (and I've stayed in several in Paris), but it was maybe 30% of the cost of a comparable experience I'd find for that location and living space size. I could be an abnormality in my usage of Airbnb. I actually pay about what I'd expect to for a standard hotel room. I just expect what I'd get in a suite minus room service.

toomuchtodo 13y ago
Would you be willing to send/provide the link to this barge you stayed on? I'm taking my wife to Europe (last major trip before children), and I would absolutely love for her to have this experience.
- Aloisius 13y ago
  Send me an email. jordan at zenzen dt org. I've stayed in plenty of other Airbnb's in Paris too. So far, I haven't gone wrong. This was a little more expensive than normal (but we had company staying in the other two small cabins so and really utilized the deck on top since Pont des Arts is one of the best views of the sunset in Paris and it is docked right there) and I happen to love boats. If you don't like a little gentle rocking, it may not be for you.
  - toomuchtodo 13y ago
    Email sent!
untog 13y ago
Most of the Airbnb's I've used are far closer to what I'd expect in a suite at a moderately nice hotel I think that AirBnB operates very differently at different price points. Once you're paying more than $x, you're right- you basically get whole apartments. And below $x you're paying less than you could ever expect for a hotel room. But in the middle is this awkward area where you're paying a relatively decent amount to stay in someone's spare room, and have to deal with the extra complications that brings but without the larger benefits.

hawkharris 13y ago

I just had a very bad experience with AirBnB. A host posted pictures of an entirely different apartment. In the real apartment the electrical outlets were falling out of the walls and the windows were so rusty that they wouldn't shut. (The place was also expensive.) But there's always a gamble with "collaborative consumption," so it's not the end of the world. And I've been very satisfied with other AirBnB experiences.

ISL 13y ago
Sometimes hotels underwhelm too. It's (unfortunately, from a measurement perspective) a matter of degree.
jobowoo 13y ago
Did you notify AirBnb? Did they rectify the situation?
- hawkharris 13y ago
  I ended up confronting the owner face-to-face about all the issues with the apartment — basically telling her it wasn't ready for rent. I told her I probably wouldn't leave a negative review as long as she fixed the problems with the listing. (She was new to renting, so I wanted to give her some slack, even though she was kinda dishonest.)
alekseyk 13y ago
Should have called the owner, AirBnB and your credit card company. In that order.

deleted 13y ago

[deleted]

ChuckMcM 13y ago

And this is why the hospitality industry is organizing against them. I love the AirBnB idea and the implementation. There is a dark side however. Hotel organizations have historically been unable to change quickly, and operate on pretty thin margins. So the existence of a significant quantity of AirBnB rentals in a market does the equivalent of the Federal Reserve 'stress test' on weak banks, except it isn't simulated. I am really on the fence about what that means. On the one hand it means a number of hotel properties will come on the market at distressed properties, on the other it means there will be a huge gap between really cheap motels and really high end hotels. One thought was to buy up a mid-range hotel property and convert it into "Tech Suites" where for each pair of rooms connected by a door, one side stayed a hotel room and the other side became a small office. My local Sunnyvale city supervisor isn't completely against the idea but they are dubious about a mixed living/commercial zone at the scale of a motel/small hotel.

jotto 13y ago
2 other common reasons to organize against airbnb are 1) neighborhoods don't like transient guests when their expectation was that the neighborhood were permanent residents and 2) airbnb is avoiding state taxes http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/28/airbnbs-tax-and-tenant-law-violations-headed-hearings http://www.sfbg.com/politics/2013/03/28/airbnbs-tax-and-tena... http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newtechcity/blogs/new-tech-city-blog/2013/feb/05/nyc-tells-airbnb-hosts-dont-get-too-cosy/ http://www.wnyc.org/shows/newtechcity/blogs/new-tech-city-bl...
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brudgers 13y ago
We had a "weekend rental" in our neighborhood - it was not listed through AirBnB. What did it mean? Well, the street became a hotel parking lot. The house became a place to throw a party for forty out-of-town guests, and the neighborhood residents...well at $500 a night why should a renter give a fuck about them? The couple hooking up on the down-low, well they sent the brats outside during morning nookie time. The kids entertained themselves by throwing rocks at the neighbor's car in her driveway. The three families staying for a youth baseball tournament - their kids swung from Jimmy's backboard until the rim popped out. The six guys attending their reunion sat on the hoods of their cars till the wee hours drinking beer and tossing the empties. The business model shifts the costs of hotel use unto surrounding properties. Next week, however, our absentee landlord gets their day in court to explain their violations of the zoning regulations. Hopefully the threat of jailtime will make an impression.

guelo 13y ago

I've been nailed with cleaning fees on Airbnb that make the cost higher than nearby hotels, which always include cleaning in the price. The cleaning fees are listed out separately so they're easy to miss, I wonder if this article took them into account.

awolf 13y ago
The cleaning fees on Airbnb are listed in the final price you pay before confirming the reservation, so I'm not sure I see the difference. Edit: good points from those who responded below. For the sake of comparison these cleaning fees do matter and weren't accounted for.
- ghshephard 13y ago
  Right - but when doing the price comparisons, did the article's author's include them in the comparison.
- chollida1 13y ago
  > The cleaning fees on Airbnb are listed in the final price you pay before confirming the reservation, True, but when you browse by price they are not. I think this is the point the OP is trying to make. They are asking if the post got prices from a final confirmation, including cleaning fees, or if they got their prices form scraping the data on their website, which wouldn't include the cleaning fees. if its the latter then I've seen cleaning fees of $50 per stay which can close the gap considerably if your only staying for 1 or 2 nights.

Diamons 13y ago

I'm honestly one of the people absolutely against AirBnB. I'm in New York City. The counter argument here is that AirBnB does not make a place a hotel but what we see all the time is direct comparisons between hotels and AirBnB.

mncolinlee 13y ago

The author forgot the single greatest cost savings I get out of traveling with AirBnB: having a kitchen. I usually learn a new local recipe or two while I'm on vacation in another city. While I still visit a couple restaurants if they serve local specialties or are well-known, I really appreciate the freedom to cook, stay healthier, and save money on meals.

angryasian 13y ago

In all honesty its hard to do a fair comparison as most people will find excellent deals on the many hotel deal sites (orbitz, priceline, etc). This can cut the cost of a hotel room's listed price to half in a lot of instances. I would think in a lot of cases a hotel room vs an airbnb room would almost be equal.

dekz 13y ago

I'll chime in with my Airbnb experience. There's always one out there that's going to bite you, I'm travelling around Europe and using AirBnb mostly. I've had great experiences with using them in Germany, Netherlands, Belgium, France. Then there is the outlier which makes you question using it at all. There is one thing you pay for in hotels and that is service and it is a requirement. With a hotel you won't ever be stranded in a foreign country, but with Airbnb it's possible. I recently booked a stay in Prague which seemed positive, with quite a large number of positive reviews. Normally with all my other airbnb stays, I contact the host many days before and organise a way to check in and a time. This has worked out well, we simply meet at a specified time, talk and get given the keys and shown around the place. Back to the story in Prague, I contact the host 4 days prior to check in and receive no reply for those 4 days. The listing on the website becomes 'disabled' and the last calendar activity of the host is 6 weeks ago. There are then reports saying that previous tenants where 'bumped' to a different apartment as there was a problem with the listed apartment. This raises alarm bells to me and the last thing I want to do is arrive in a foreign country and be left stranded. Which is exactly what happened. I contacted AirBNB a day prior to the event detailing the 'fishiness' via online medium and have only received automated replies. Luckily our host in a previous city had a friend who could arrange us a stay at short notice. Don't get me wrong, people are people and there are fantastic people out there. So really the price difference is a multitude of services, and how much you will risk being stranded or mislead.

phillc73 13y ago
Why would you be left stranded if this AirBnB booking fell through? Unless you had absolutely no money, what's to stop you booking a cheap hotel or hostel for the night? I've never used AirBnB and have no real plans to. However, I have traveled around Europe extensively, and some of the best times were when I simply arrived somewhere and then attempted to find accommodation. I rode my motorcycle from London to Spain, toured for two weeks and never booked a single hotel in advance (my GPS packed it in on the second day too, so I played with paper maps). Only once was the first hotel I entered unable to find me a room. I traveled around Sicily on public transport, mostly buses, a few trains and ferries. Again, I never booked accommodation in advance, always found somewhere and was never stranded.

CountHackulus 13y ago

For me, the only issue with AirBnB is that they want me to upload a picture of my passport. I don't care who's on the other end, you're not getting a picture of my passport. Because of this requirement I had to cancel my nice apartment reservation in Boston only to stay in a far more expensive hotel. But at least they didn't keep a picture of my passport on file.

peterwwillis 13y ago

It occurs to me that for about the same price you could reserve a private room in a hostel in many of these areas. Sure it lacks the charm of someone's apartment, but it also has the legal and cultural support that Airbnb is missing.

subpixel 13y ago

In my experience (~ 6 AirBnB stays) if cost is your major motivator, you're more likely to have a lousy AirBnB experience. I've stayed in NYC and in smaller markets in AirBnB places I selected for cost. Why pay $200+ when I can stay for $80 in someone's private room? Well, you get what you pay for, and when you pay less then a local hotel the things you miss are the things that hotel charges you for: cleanliness, privacy, and respect for your time. While reviews/recommendations are supposed to be a filter for quality, they're really something of an echo chamber on AirBnB. If you leave a host a negative review, they may do the same for you, and fear of being publicly labeled an undesirable guest is enough to keep most travelers mute. That said, once you start paying something roughly comparable to a hotel rate in a given city, they likelihood of you having a better experience increases. These are hosts who are basically running a side business and treat you like a customer. For better or worse, they charge you more to treat you better. I think it's the higher end AirBnB market that hotels should fear.

pdog 13y ago

> At an Airbnb, you get access to a kitchen, you can stay in a neighborhood with character (hotels tend to congregate around touristy areas), and you can stay at some pretty unique places. There are hotels in colorful neighborhoods with some pretty unique rooms. And how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out?

auctiontheory 13y ago
how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out? Most?
- deleted 13y ago
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pg 13y ago
"how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than eat out?" All those with small children, to start with.
- pdog 13y ago
  Certainly budget-conscious people too. And some places have great local fish, meat, and produce markets.
- VandyILL 13y ago
  Depends on whether I'm traveling or vacationing. For a brief vacation I'll probably eat out every meal. But if I'm traveling, I'll probably want to conserve money plus get tired of big meals. Even on a vacation that goes about a week long I'd probably eat in a kitchen a couple times if I could.
state 13y ago
Having access to a kitchen may be the main reason that I much prefer AirBnB when traveling. I can't stand being forced to eat every single meal out of the house during an entire trip.

rdl 13y ago

I'd rather stay in AirBnB than in a mediocre hotel in most markets, but a great hotel is still totally worth it to me. My personal AirBnB stays have been pretty varied. When I stayed in SF in 2008 it was awesome, because I ended up staying with a friend of the founders and then in the actual AirBnB corporate apartment and meeting one of the AirBnB guys. When I stayed in Japan, it was amazing -- the spare couch of a Thai expat living in Tokyo, who then introduced me to her friends, and we went out to do stuff a few times. An long-term expat from a culture I understood (Thailand) is an even better introduction to Japan than a Japanese national. But then I stayed in a few other places in Asia where it was a "regular low-end hotel or apartment rental" who relisted on AirBnB. I generally don't stay in hotels like that otherwise, and in comparison to 5 star luxury hotels, it was pretty weak, and IMO for 50% of the price, not worth it. I actually really like the "large high-end luxury hotel experience" -- being able to arrive at 3am to a fully staffed front desk, having 24h room service, knowing reliably exactly what the place will be like in advance, etc. And, if you have some third-party-paid stays and optimize for frequent stay points, the cost can be pretty reasonable (e.g. 10 x $60/night normal stays redeemed for 2 free $1000/night NYC NYE stays). I tried to use AirBnB for Hawaii, but couldn't find enough listings at the time; ended up using another similar service (VRBO?) and discovered some terrifying people. I'll try AirBnB more in markets where it's strong, and probably higher-end properties than I tried in the past, but I don't think it will destroy hotels.

unfletch 13y ago

I take a weeklong trip to San Francisco every few months -- a city with loads of Airbnb uptake. I used Airbnb for the first few trips and was happy with the apartments I rented, but I've stopped even looking at Airbnb because the booking process is such a pain. Every time I've used it there's been 24-72 hours of back and forth with a host before I even know whether I can reserve their place. Often I lose a day waiting to hear from a host only to find out their calendar wasn't up to date and it's not actually available. Hotels are more expensive, but booking one is trivially easy. That convenience is worth a lot to me.

dhess 13y ago
I've been having the same problem with Honolulu. In the last 3 weeks I've had 3 or 4 booking attempts declined because the host's calendar was not accurate. Airbnb folks: this drags your product down to the level of VRBO, Flipkey, etc., where spotty availability calendars creates a large disincentive to use the service.
trustfundbaby 13y ago
I was pro-airbnb-all-the-time till I booked a room that looked good in the photos but was in a shitty building in a shitty part of town ... (I was in a hurry and couldn't really do as much research as I normally would have). I was there for a nice relaxing vacation so it was quite a surprise and I wound up losing $500 because I immediately ended my reservation and used hotel tonight to get a better room for about the same price. With hotels, at least you generally get what you pay for, and you can rely on branding (brand names and star ratings) to get you most of the way there as well. So while I hope to use airbnb again, I'm quite chastened by the experience and am definitely more aware of the things I used to take for granted with booking hotels.

latchkey 13y ago

How about measuring the ability to even book a place in a city like NYC? I recently tried to find an apt for a 4 day stay in manhattan with my wife. I contacted 15 places on airbnb. I've got all the reputation stuff filled out. I've used airbnb before. I tried only contacting places with a history of good response times. I even upped my max to higher than a hotel room. $300-350 a night. Number of responses? Zero. I love the concept, but the reality is much different than everyone makes it seem.

meritt 13y ago
It's currently illegal for property owners to rent out their NYC places on AirBNB, so you're going to see dramatically lower response rates right now.

205guy 13y ago

I'm not a big fan of AirBnB, but I also think hotels have room to offer better services and compete better with home-stay options. Somebody already suggested live-work suites, but it doesn't have to be every room. Depending on the location, the hotel could have a percentage of working suites, or even a drop-in office not full of back-packers chatting on facetime for a reasonable rate. Same for kitchens: provide a number of kitchenette rooms or a useful kitchen for guest use--not just a crappy breakfast. Hotels could also offer a "home-stay" rate that does not include housekeeping on stays over 3 days--I'd go for that every time. On the other hand, AirBnB should be more like a hotel: collect all hotel and local taxes on every stay. It should also be a law for both hotels and home-stay websites to advertise only the full and final cost, including all taxes, cleaning fees, and so-called "resort fees."

adnrw 13y ago

Last time we were in Paris we stayed in a great hotel for five nights. This time we stayed in an apartment via AirBnB for a month for the same total amount of money. We did our research - found hotels willing to give us a discount for a month's stay, looked at other apartment rental agencies etc. but AirBnB was far and away the cheapest option for what we were after. The apartment was fantastic, exactly as described and in the condition shown in the photos. It was clean, the owner was extremely helpful during the planning and booking stages and met us at the apartment (at 11pm on Christmas night, no less) when we arrived in Paris. She provided cleaning at no extra charge - we arranged with the cleaner directly, who arrived half an hour before we left for the airport. Frankly, I couldn't fault the service. AirBnB staff were great (we had a billing issue early on that they resolved in minutes), the host was great, the apartment was great and the whole process was easy. Obviously there are trade-offs when staying in an apartment rather than a hotel, but from my experience they're more than worth it to save a significant amount of money.

venus 13y ago

AirBNB would never be able to survive in countries with a well-run "business hotel" culture. I frequently travel to Japan and usually stay at a business hotel chain like Dormy Inn or Richmond - the price is rarely above $80/night and the rooms are perfectly fine. No Sofitel, sure, but about Ibis level. And Dormy Inn has an onsen in every hotel! If a decent hotel room is ~$80 then I wouldn't even think of using AirBNB and I doubt I'm alone. I have no idea why hotels in other countries are so damn expensive.

jpatokal 13y ago
That's all well and good if you're a solo business traveler happy to sleep in a cubicle. But if you've got the wife and kids, one of whom's a toddler who needs some space to run around and the other a baby just starting his solids so you need to boil and mash veggies, I can tell you from personal experience it's damned hard to find a decent place to stay. Short-stay apartments haven't really caught on in Japan: your choice is basically either tiny business hotels, or renting an apartment ("weekly mansion") for a month-plus. Unfortunately Airbnb's still quite limited in Tokyo (very few Japanese people seem to know about it), but I'd go for one in a heartbeat if the location was decent.
- robin_reala 13y ago
  I rented a nice apartment for a week in Shibuya the last time I was there for 2/3rds the price of the hotels we’d been staying in. They do exist, even if the range of options is a little limited.
- snogglethorpe 13y ago
  Business hotels are not "cubicles" in most cases, they're perfectly adequate for 95% of travelers, and there's a wide range of size/quality/budget tradeoffs. Sure if you're a traveling circus and need room to set up your trapeze, then maybe you need more room—but so what? In that case, you pay a bit more and get a somewhat larger room. Options exist, even for odd cases like yours. The cool thing in places like Japan is that you actually have a choice whereas in places like NYC, you have far less. For that reason I dread visiting the states anytime I don't have a friend I can stay with or something. The U.S., especially, could really do with a big shakeup of its dysfunctional hotel culture. And its dysfunctional transportation culture. And ... well you get the idea...

tzury 13y ago

Here is my "experience" with AirBNB: I had to be 5 days (4 nights) in La-Defense[1] near Paris for an hacking marathon along with my co-founder who lives right there. AirBNB was my default choice, and I manged to spot a nice (according to the pictures) small apartment in that area, with WiFi etc. I booked, and thought all is well. Later on, say, 12 or 24 hours or so, I get a message that the owner has rejected me (no reason specified). I switch to Hotels, and managed to find a much better suite, in a far nicer environment for a little cheaper than that apartment, I think it was via booking.com. I don't think I will ever check this options again, as for me, the possibility of being rejected later on, with no reason, while flights and meetings are already booked, means a risk, I would not dare take. of curse this is my own single experience, and there are thousands of travelers who gets there BnB solution every day and all are happy. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_D%C3%A9fense

evadne 13y ago

I complained to Airbnb once about a dirty and grimy bathtub. They said: > As every property, guest and host is different and has different expectations and ideas of a level of acceptable cleanliness, it is very difficult to have a fully standardised workflow on cleanliness. What might be normal or acceptable to one person, may not be for another. Our hosting obligations specify these things, but obviously, what one person considers 'properly cleaned' is very different from another - you can read about the hosting obligations here - https://www.airbnb.com/policies#host_obligations https://www.airbnb.com/policies#host_obligations Airbnb is more work, more risk, more variability, and less certainty. If you’re staying at a hotel and something doesn’t work out, you can usually get another room or at least have it looked at. If the place you just booked on Airbnb does not work out, you’re out of luck. Great customer support does not change the fact that it’s a necessity because incidents just happen. When you’re hit by a problem, you’re not a statistic. I’ve got my fair shade of apparently unwashed linen, moldy-smelling crack shacks, pile of shoes randomly dumped in a coat closet, exposed wiring, blood stain in the bathtub, a random pot house hosting a skludgy Aussie drunkard, and a basement suite with a junked fridge outside of it. For the record, I’ve also got a fair amount of places with fabulous views, hosts who can’t be any nicer, and impeccably clean floors. Booking with Airbnb is like gambling with your life quality in general. You have to be extremely cautious and meticulously expend a great amount of effort just to make sure you’re booking a place that’s actually good. When it’s good it’s really good. When it’s bad it’s hellishly awful. Airbnb is sometimes much cheaper, but that’s possibly all it is to me.

ry0ohki 13y ago

The biggest thing this is missing is the taxes. Cities love to gouge travelers on taxes. A $250 hotel room has as much as a 10-15% tax on it typically.

tixocloud 13y ago

I can understand that price may be the most important factor but I feel that the article lacks a more exhaustive comparative analysis - namely considering other factors and risks that are important when a person looks for a room