
Airbnb vs. Hotels: A Price Comparison - jejune06
http://priceonomics.com/hotels/
======
ChuckMcM
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.

~~~
brudgers
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.

~~~
jaibot
Side note: This is among the reasons free parking is terrible.

~~~
jseliger
Excellent point. For a larger discussion of this, see Shroup's _The High Cost
of Free Parking_ : [http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-
Edition/dp/1...](http://www.amazon.com/High-Cost-Parking-Updated-
Edition/dp/193236496X?ie=UTF8&tag=thstsst-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=390957)

------
Aloisius
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.

~~~
BadCookie
On the other side of the coin, your hotel is unlikely to cancel on you at the
last minute (which happened to me recently with an Airbnb). So you are
accepting a certain level of risk. It's also less convenient to book an
Airbnb, especially if you are only staying one night because most hosts have a
two night minimum. Mostly, I agree with you, though.

~~~
ghshephard
While I was attending a training course in 2001 - I arrived at the Doubletree
in Richardson, Texas on a sunday night to discover that the room I had booked,
and provided my credit card for - was not available to me. Even worse than a
cancellation, as now we had to scramble to find another hotel at 11:00 PM on a
sunday night (in richardson, texas)

------
dekz
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
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.

~~~
dekz
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear, the booking didn't 'Fall through' as you phrased
it. As per AirBnb's terms once you have booked the stay, on the day you have
to 'assume' everything is ok regarding the check in and rock up to a random
radius of where the apartment is. So even though I wasn't able to contact the
host and organise a meet up time, Airbnb gives you a rough location of where
the apartment is (host doesn't have to specify exact address) and you meet
there at some time. Check the FAQ and the terms here
([https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/88](https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/88)).

I was left stranded as the check in time was 'organise with host', no
specified time and the apartment location was a broad area. I had neither a
time nor a place to check into, that's how I was stranded.

I had organised a Plan 'B' knowing this may happen so I didn't spend the night
on the street.

I contacted AirBnb via their website a day before this event and still am yet
to receive a reply from their customer support.

I think you're arguing my point any way, it's harder to be stranded from a
hotel, either they will find you a room or they will point you somewhere else
who can.

~~~
Anonymous238
Plan B is important with AirBnB. I'm staying in an apartment right now I found
on there (Prague as well), and it worked out well. However, like you said
renting an apartment from an individual could easily leave you stranded. I
mean, you could show up to get the keys, and they're simply not there. Maybe
they're late? Maybe they had an emergency? Maybe they forgot? You need that
backup plan and a location of a nearby hotel, hostel, number for a taxi, etc,
just in case. This doesn't happen with a hotel. Nonetheless, I'm going to
stick with AirBnB. I enjoy renting apartments, they have a lot more character
than hotel rooms, are cozy, and you feel like you're a part of the city, which
is why I travel in the first place.

------
subpixel
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.

------
guelo
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
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.

~~~
chollida1
> 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.

------
unfletch
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.

~~~
trustfundbaby
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.

------
venus
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
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.

~~~
snogglethorpe
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...

~~~
jpatokal
My "odd case", also known as family travel (adults travelling with children),
represents 30% of all travel worldwide. Did I mention I used to work for
Lonely Planet?

Regarding my apparently plentiful options, can you point me to a business
hotel near Tokyo Station which has rooms for four people at a price that's a
"bit" more than the standard under-Y10k business hotel cubicle? Go ahead, I'm
waiting.

And Airbnb seems to be doing a pretty good job of shaking up that
dysfunctional hotel culture...

~~~
venus
> 30% of all travel worldwide

Lonely Planet or not, that is very hard to believe. I know anecdotes != data
but this is so different from my normal experience that I just can't accept
it. I do not think I have ever been on a plane where 30% of pax are
vacationing families. Business travel outweighs vacations 10 to 1, or it feels
like it.

Anyway, of course you're not going to get a family-sized suite for 1万円 at a
proper hotel. You wouldn't get an apartment, either. I am not sure what you
are expecting here. A four-person suite is going to cost way more no matter
how you cut it. And if you claim four-person suites make up 30% of hotel
bookings, then you are hallucinating.

I hadn't really perceived that AirBNB was evolving into a short-term apartment
rental system, but if that works for you, great! My point was simply that,
since I don't have all these dependents, I would never think of using it in a
country with good business hotels.

~~~
dagw
_I do not think I have ever been on a plane where 30% of pax are vacationing
families_

I don't think I have either, but I have been on flights where 95+% where
vacationing families, so I wouldn't be surprised if it balances out. Most
routes are either business focused or vacation focused, so depending on what
routes you travel you probably won't be sharing your flight with many from the
other group.

------
hawkharris
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.

~~~
jobowoo
Did you notify AirBnb? Did they rectify the situation?

~~~
hawkharris
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.)

------
Diamons
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.

------
CountHackulus
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.

------
rdl
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.

------
angryasian
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.

------
walexander
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
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
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
Pretty impressive for a first post with d3. Really nicely done.

~~~
omarish
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)

------
peterwwillis
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.

------
adnrw
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.

------
tzury
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
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.

------
mncolinlee
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.

------
pdog
_> 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?

~~~
pg
"how many people, when traveling, opt to use the kitchen even once rather than
eat out?"

All those with small children, to start with.

~~~
VandyILL
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.

------
205guy
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."

------
latchkey
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
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.

------
tixocloud
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

------
ry0ohki
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.

