What Hotels Say About Airbnb on Their Earnings Calls
Skift Take
Airbnb: potential distribution partner or industry threat? Some hotel companies and booking sites say neither, while others are keeping a watchful eye on both the positive and negative effects Airbnb may create.
When you’re labeled an industry disruptor, chances are your name is going to pop up a couple of times as your contemporaries/rivals discuss their futures.
Airbnb’s ears must have been ringing these past few weeks, as Q3 2015 hospitality-related earnings calls unfolded with much chatter about the apartment-rental site's role in the travel sector.
Airbnb has greatly shaken up the industry, but it has yet to have any clear effect on hotel companies’ incomes. A 2013 study by Boston University titled "The Rise of the Sharing Economy: Estimating the Impact of Airbnb on the Hotel Industry" found that “higher-end chain scales, as well as hotels that cater to transient business travel, should be the most insulated from Airbnb.”
Still, its reputation and increasing growth can not be so easily overlooked — or can it?
Hoteliers have a four-stage process when responding to industry disruptors, says Robert Cole, hotel marketing strategy and tr
