Hotels are a limited option. They are perfect for a single couple, or with one or two kids.
For a single person they tend to be a bit expensive since you usually pay the price for two, and hostels, which can accommodate single travelers are not common in the US. But there are plenty of shared AirBnBs.
If, on the opposite you are traveling in a larger group (4+ adults), hotel options are again limited. You often need to split the group into distinct rooms, which is not the most friendly.
For business travel, hotels all the way, but for vacation, AirBnB often had the best options for my situation (single, traveling alone or with a group of friends) in several countries including the US.
Sure, ignoring total cost and just going by the rates you pay up front.
What are you going to do when there's a dispute, a crime, or a disaster?
Hotels are insured and their employees are bonded for lots of stuff. Hotels are highly regulated for a lot of reasons that happened in the past and nobody remembers, because they don't happen anymore, but they're all being recapitulated with AirBnB supposedly "disrupting" the industry.
Every time I've stayed in a hotel, even long before I was aware that regulation was a thing or what it regulated, I was grateful for the rigorous structures that were set in place and the guidelines that needed to be followed by our hosts so that we could have a pleasant and predictable stay.
The main advantages that these “we don’t provide a service, we provide an app to connect you to a service” companies have is that they can dodge local regulations and the don’t take the full reputation damage when they have a bad host.
There’s no way they can compete with hotel chains in terms of scale and having sorted out best practices.
Meeeh, I've stayed in quite a few very unique AirBNB locations. I typically purposefully go for places out of the way and with very few amenities. My favorite rental was an extremely small cabin with no running water in the middle of nowhere for something like 60$ a day. Definitely hit or miss though but it's part of the fun, once I stayed at a cabin near a swamp and the frogs kept me up for quite a while. Maybe it's easy to find places like this for some people but for me this is the reason I still use AirBNB.
This is such an annoying blanket statement. Yes, hotels are the best option in larger cities for short term stays, but as soon as you plan to stay for a few weeks or months and need a kitchen, and want to live relatively close to a local life, airbnb is the best route with the most options.
For a single person they tend to be a bit expensive since you usually pay the price for two, and hostels, which can accommodate single travelers are not common in the US. But there are plenty of shared AirBnBs.
If, on the opposite you are traveling in a larger group (4+ adults), hotel options are again limited. You often need to split the group into distinct rooms, which is not the most friendly.
For business travel, hotels all the way, but for vacation, AirBnB often had the best options for my situation (single, traveling alone or with a group of friends) in several countries including the US.