Airbnb’s Impact on Online Travel Agencies and Hotels Is Different Than You Thought

In just eight years, San Francisco-based Airbnb has made much more than a name for itself. Now valued at an estimated $25.5 billion and growing every day in terms of its inventory and global reach, it's on the minds of both hoteliers and online travel agencies, and respective investors. While there's been plenty of debate about whether or not Airbnb is having a negative impact on the hotel industry, there hasn't been nearly as much conversation about whether or not Airbnb is impacting online travel agencies (OTAs) like Expedia or Booking.com, even though the platform arguably shares many similarities to those sites in terms of its use as a distribution channel. Some have even gone so far as to suggest that Airbnb will become the next great hotel distribution channel. A new report from 7Park Data, a mobile app data miner, examined Airbnb's impact on OTAs by capturing mobile app usage across 2 million mobile devices in more than 75 countries around the world. It also identified