Skift Travel News Blog

“Google will kill Airbnb,” tweeted Nick Huber, who writes about business and real estate, owns a self-storage company, and has 247,000 followers on Twitter.

Two people independently messaged me about the tweet, which has generated a few thousand “likes,” and hundreds of retweets since Sunday.

One Skift colleague said of the tweet: “Everything this guy says in his tweet thread is wrong.”

Conversely, a superhost in Europe messaged me about Huber’s tweet: “I would have to agree. Everybody loves a direct booking (both hosts and guests), with no whopping service charges.”

Google will kill Airbnb. pic.twitter.com/dpu2Khk9k7

— Nick Huber (@sweatystartup) August 28, 2022

Hosts Just Need to Put Links to Properties in Google … Hmmm

If only it were that simple.

Huber argues that hosts and guests can avoid Airbnb’s substantial fees, and both can save money with direct bookings. Actually, he claimed that Airbnb takes 25 percent of the transaction, mostly from guests, in the form of fees, which seems excessively off the mark.

After this story posted, travel industry veteran Drew Patterson tweeted that Airbnb revenue was only 13 percent of gross bookings in 2021.

Might also mention his math is wrong on margins / take rate. In 2021, ABNB did $6B revenue on $46B gross booking (13%) vs. his claim of 25%.

— Drew Patterson (@drewpats) August 29, 2022

One of the silliest things Huber tweets is, “All it takes is folks putting a little link to their software in the Google listing. Management co manages that directly. Way more revenue to owner and less cost to guests.”

Alas, graveyards full of startup companies from Palo Alto to Madrid and Mexico City are testimony to the fact that you can’t merely put a link on a Google business listing, and expect millions upon millions of customers to discover it, and then use it. It takes a mammoth amount of resources to attract direct bookings and for a vacation rental business to build their own brands.

Hey, direct bookings would be mostly great for hosts and, to a lesser extent, guests, but how can property owners and managers attract them?

If you look at the global hotel industry, it has done an admirable job over the last few years, spending huge sums in advertising to urge customers to book directly on their own websites, where they have the lowest rates, instead of using online travel agencies.

Hotels have made significant strides in this regard in attracting direct bookings, but the vast majority of them still rely on online travel agencies to attract price-conscious consumers who care little about whether they are staying in a Marriott or a Sofitel.

Hotel direct bookings haven’t killed Expedia or Booking.com. Travel, it is often said, isn’t a zero-sum game. There is ample room for multiple winners.

Property owners use Airbnb for a reason: Airbnb has a great brand, and attracts legions of guests who start searching for places to stay on Airbnb instead of beginning their trip-planning on Google.

How does the host with one or a handful of properties compete with that kind of market power?

Direct Bookings Have Risks, Too

And although guests can avoid Airbnb’s fees by booking direct with the host, they run the risk of having no one to turn to if the host or property turn out to be a nightmare. Whether or not they work as well as advertised, Airbnb has some insurance protections in place for both hosts and guests.

Airbnb critics will be quick to say that Airbnb’s customer service for guests can be challenging, but it’s often better than dealing with hosts who have no brand or track record to stand behind them.

On the question of Google “killing” Airbnb, the latter has for the past couple of years been able to grow while keeping the percentage of the revenue it spends on marketing — and Google — relatively low and stable.

In fact, Google’s travel vertical has a vacation rentals feature, and it hasn’t really distinguished itself or put much of a dent in Airbnb’s growth precisely because Airbnb, and other big vacation rental brands, have shunned offering their homes and apartments through Google vacation rentals. So Google is hardly usurping Airbnb on that front.

Google has certainly damaged the businesses of innumerable travel companies because of its near-monopoly in search and the way it preferences its own travel advertising features. Curiously, although most of the far-out theories about Google taking over the travel industry tend to say that Google will transition from an advertising to a booking platform and would become an online travel agency — a switch that Google has shown little appetite for — Huber isn’t even making that argument.

Instead, he’s arguing that Google will serve as a listing platform, and build advertising around it, and that hosts, with an assist perhaps from property managers, would see direct bookings flow like lava down a hillside because these offers are inherently the best and cheapest deals for both hosts and guests.

Both Google and Airbnb Face Headwinds

Google killing Airbnb begs the question of which of the two has momentum versus the other. Both face big antitrust or regulatory challenges, and it’s hard to choose which one has the more daunting obstacles.

A little deeper into his twitter thread, Huber retreats a bit from his Google killing Airbnb opener, and pleads for “nuance.”

“Of course Airbnb will always have users,” he tweeted. “But over time many guests will go on google, find a vacation rental in an ideal location, click through to that website & book w/o paying hundreds in fees. 20 yrs from now ABNB will be a glorified lead generator.”

When it comes to predicting the future of companies two decades from now, I’ll pass on that one, considering it is difficult to look even two or three years ahead to see what the business world would look like.

So, alas, in Huber’s view, his talk of Airbnb’s death was apparently bombast.

When a twitter user tells Huber he downplayed the importance of factors like trust and reliability when considering direct bookings versus reservations through Airbnb, Huber retreats a bit further, tweeting:

“I think there will be an increased number of guests going directly. You can do all of those things without giving a huge chunk to Airbnb.”

Finally, that’s something we can agree with: There are many hosts doing everything they can to generate direct bookings, and they’ll likely have a degree of success. But I don’t believe “Google will kill Airbnb,” or that Airbnb will close shop anytime soon.

Note: This story has been updated to include additional information on Airbnb’s take rate. It also clarified Google’s role in the travel industry.

Life is often a series of tradeoffs, right? Such is the case for Airbnb, which is testing new anti-house party technology in the U.S. and Canada that would steer some potential guests barred from booking whole homes toward private rooms and hotel stays instead.

“This anti-party technology is designed to prevent a reservation attempt from going through,” Airbnb stated in its press announcement about the technology, which had been piloted in Australia since 2021. “Guests who are unable to make entire home bookings due to this system will still be able to book a private room (where the Host is more likely to be physically on site) or a hotel room through Airbnb.”

 House parties have been a huge problem for Airbnb — and communities — for years.

Airbnb bans them and has for the last couple of years been conducting manual reviews of guests younger than 25 who might have few positive reviews from hosts on the site, or may be booking a home near where they live for just one night or two, for example.

With the tech that Airbnb has is testing in the U.S. and Canada, the manual review still happens after a booking is made, but Airbnb’s tech now looks at additional signals, may review people older than 25, and redirects many of them to optionally book hotel rooms, and private rooms in homes.

Many hotels, of course, wouldn’t welcome guests intent on conducting parties, but there is usually more security and other personnel to ward off problems than there is in a vacation rental where the host is usually not present.

Hosts apparently wanted less of a sledgehammer blocking all these types of potential house-party bookings, and the ability to accept bookings where the chance for a house party would be greatly reduced, such as when hosts are present during the stay.

“We have seen a 35 percent drop in incidents of unauthorized parties in the areas of Australia where this pilot has been in effect,” Airbnb said. “We are now ending the pilot phase in Australia and codifying this product nationwide. We are hoping for similar success as we begin testing this in the U.S. and Canada.”

CorpHousing Group, which provides short-term rentals under the SoBeNY consumer brand, was slated to see its shares begin trading Friday on the Nasdaq Capital Market.

The company announced that it hoped to generate $13.5 million in gross proceeds as it stock starts trading under the symbol CHG. The Nasdaq Capital Market is geared for emerging companies with smaller market caps.

The initial public offering would be for more than 3.3 million shares at $4 per share, the company said.

CorpHousing Group offers consumers short-term rentals of single and multifamily units, including furnished apartments.

“Our acquisition initiatives also include leasing portfolios of unreserved rooms at hotels or leasing closed hotels and reopening them under our brands, including SoBeNY,” the company said in its prospectus.

It currently has rentals in Denver; Los Angeles; Miami; Miami Beach; Seattle; Washington, D.C.; Boston and New York, among other locations.

Cendyn, which offers customer relationship management and digital marketing tools to hotels, said on Wednesday it had acquired DigitalHotelier, which provides hoteliers with tools for distribution, web design, digital marketing, and rate-setting.

The companies didn’t disclose the terms of the deal. The London-based Digitalhotelier was a bootstrapped company of a few dozen workers. It saw a reduction in its business development staff during the pandemic.

The acquisition helps Florida-based Cendyn expand its distribution and eCommerce capabilities, which help hoteliers drive more direct bookings. But probably as importantly, it helps Cendyn reach more customers in Europe.

Accel-KKR, a technology-focused private equity firm based in Silicon Valley, is a majority owner of Cendyn.

“Our mission at Cendyn is to provide hoteliers around the globe with innovative technology solutions that enable deeper, more profitable guest relationships,” said Tim Sullivan, CEO and president at Cendyn, in a statement.

Google Travel’s flight and hotel offerings gained the most desktop traffic market share in the U.S. during the pandemic while Tripadvisor lost the most on a percentage basis, according to Similarweb’s June data.

“Google Travel now owns one-fourth of all (U.S.) desktop visits to top travel sites,” Similarweb said.

In its earnings call about second quarter financials Tuesday, Google said travel and retail were the drivers of its advertising revenue during the period.

The following chart shows Google Travel’s U.S. desktop market share increased 6 percentage points to 24 percent in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of pre-pandemic 2019.

U.S. Desktop Market Share Traffic Gains/Losses H1 2019 Versus H1 2022

Site	2019	2022
Google Travel	18%	24%
Booking.com	14%	16%
Airbnb	14%	15%
Expedia	13%	13%
Southwest	6%	6%
Vrbo	4%	6%
Marriott	5%	5%
Delta	8%	4%
TripAdvisor	9%	4%

Source: Simillarweb

“Booking has also gained 2 percentage points of share in the U.S., and only Kayak (-1 percentage point), Delta (-4 percentage points), and TripAdvisor (-5 percentage points) have lost share,” Similarweb said.

There are two points to keep in mind: These numbers don’t include traffic from mobile devices, and traffic to Google Travel often gets sent along to online travel agency advertisers.

Salesforce-backed Mews has launched a dedicated investment arm called Mews Ventures.

The company, which provides enterprise software to hotels with what’s commonly known as a property management system, or PMS, said it wants to help shape the future of hospitality.

Mews Ventures will focus on three areas: transformation, partnerships and product boosts.

Mews founder Richard Valtr said the new venture reflected its series of acquisitions over the past two years, which includes Cenium, Hotel Perfect and Bizzon.

“By bringing together the brightest minds in tech, hospitality and beyond, we aim to fuel growth and innovation,” he wrote in a blog post.

The new investment arm will “accelerate the technological transformation of our industry by consolidating past leaders as well as boosting new and interesting ideas in hospitality, connecting the best people and technology with the growing Mews community.”

Mews employs 600 people in 15 locations around the world.

Saudi Arabia’s tourism development fund said it would help invest in the building of lifestyle hotels in the kingdom through a new hotel investment fund worth $400 million (1.5 billion Saudi riyals) that Al Rajhi Capital will manage.

Ennismore, a lifestyle hospitality joint venture with Accor, will pinpoint locations, provide financing options, and lead the development and operation of these projects, which will create about 2,000 hotel rooms.

Ennismore didn’t specify which of its 14 brands — which includes 25hours, The Hoxton, Delano, Gleneagles, Mama Shelter, Mondrian, Morgans Originals, and 21c Museum Hotel — will appear in the kingdom.

Saudi’s tourism development fund (TDF), created in 2020, has $4 billion to drive tourism growth in the kingdom.

Ennismore was founded by co-CEO Sharan Pasricha, who will be speaking at Skift Global Forum in New York.

One of the most talked about trends in travel has been how many people are merging business with leisure in “workcations” or “bleisure.” The Toggle Hotel in Tokyo caught our eyes for how it brings the concept of blended hospitality to life.

The Toggle Hotel has painted most of its interiors in only two colors, accentuating how guests can toggle between leisure and business. Located by the Suidōbashi train station in Chiyoda City, the property has painted each floor in a different pair of colors.

Continuing with its theme of blurring boundaries, the hotel has placed its lobby on the top floor. People start their stay with skyline views and can enjoy a break in a cafe — also painted in only two colors.

Klein Dytham Architecture is the firm behind the project.

A lot of hotel guests are dissatisfied with customer service and costs, according to study released on Wednesday by JD Power, a market research firm.

A survey of 34,407 hotel guests for stays between May 2021 and May 2022 found a higher level of complaints than the previous comparable period.

Many consumers appear to be irritated about costs and fees, room cleanliness, and staffing. The results come against a backdrop of a hotel sector struggling to handle the post-pandemic surge in demand during a labor crisis.

Key takeaways involve the interplay of cost and quality in consumers’ minds:

• “The single biggest factor driving this year’s 8-point decline in overall satisfaction is hotel cost and fees.”
• Guest satisfaction with budget and “upper-midscale” properties fell 11 points, the largest decline in years.
• “Another factor driving the decline is satisfaction with guest rooms, which suggests that hotel guests are feeling like they are paying more, but not getting more in return.”
• “While hotels still get relatively high satisfaction scores for guest room cleanliness, scores for décor and furnishings, in-room amenities and quality of bathrooms decline from a year ago.”

Hotel giant Marriott International has suffered a data breach, with hackers stealing 20 gigabytes of sensitive information, including guests’ credit card information.

In 2020, Marriott notified 5 million guests their information was compromised through an app used to provide services at hotels.

This event is on a smaller scale, as according to a report by DataBreaches the incident, which took place in June, saw an as-yet unidentified group claim they used “social engineering” — where hackers trick someone into performing an action or divulging confidential information — to access a computer at the BWI Airport Marriott Maryland.

The hotel is described as “modern, convenient and superbly situated” and is a popular layover for flight crews — leaked documents include reservations made by airlines for their employees.

Names and details of other guests, including credit card information used to make bookings, have also been leaked, and Marriott is reportedly notifying up to 400 individuals of the attack, although it’s unclear if they are mostly guests or Marriott’s own staff.

“Marriott International is aware of a threat actor who used social engineering to trick one associate at a single Marriott hotel into providing access to the associate’s computer. The threat actor did not gain access to Marriott’s core network,” a Marriott spokesperson told TechCrunch.

It is unclear whether ransom money was demanded.

Earlier this month Israel’s Gol Tours Ltd suffered a cyber attack that saw 30,000 profiles leaked.

UPDATE: In a statement to Skift on Thursday, a Marriott International spokesperson said:

“Marriott International is aware of a threat actor who used social engineering to trick one associate at a single Marriott hotel into providing access to the associate’s computer. The threat actor did not gain access to Marriott’s core network. Our investigation determined that the information accessed primarily contained non-sensitive internal business files regarding the operation of the property. The incident was contained to a short period of time. Marriott identified and was investigating the incident before the threat actor contacted the company in an extortion attempt, which Marriott did not pay. The company is preparing to notify 300-400 individuals regarding the incident. Marriott has also notified law enforcement and is supporting their investigation.”