Boutique Hotel Leaders Say Airbnb Is No Match For Their Service and Experiences
Photo Credit: From left to right: Paul Ruffinto, senior vice president of Nola Hospitality; Jan Freitag, senior vice president of STR; Niki Leondakis, CEO of Commune Hotels + Resorts; Keith Space, president and CEO of Boutique Hospitality Management; Glenn Wasserman, CFO of Denihan Hospitality; Mark Woodworth, president of PKF Hospitality Research. Skift / Dan Peltier
Skift Take
Airbnb wants to infuse more lifestyle and boutique hotels want to create more authentic experiences. Where's the happy medium and who wins?
Make no mistake: boutique hotel CEOs don't believe Airbnb will ever take away the lion's share of their business, but they're still watching inquisitively and playing catch-up.
The $20 billion home-share company dominated conversation at a Boutique Lifestyle and Lodging Association conference panel this week in New York City. The association is comprised of lifestyle and boutique hotels wanting to unify as a single voice, which emphatically said big box brands should be more concerned about Airbnb than the boutiques who boast about their experience-focused models.
Here are some thoughts from six boutique hotel CEOs and executives on how they're embracing the sharing economy's competition, their thoughts on its growth and how boutique hotels must improve their experiential promises.
Glenn Wasserman, CFO of Denihan Hospitality:
On proving boutique hotels' worth to investors: "How do we tell the institutional world why it's better to be us in certain markets? That's become th
