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by light_hue_1
839 days ago
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That's a really confused way of looking at the issue. That the only thing we should look at is supply. Demand matters of course too. Airbnb created massive new demand for housing for people that don't live there. Those people can afford to pay more than locals. That takes away large amounts of supply from locals. Therefore AirBnb's effect is devastating. AirBnb should be completely banned everywhere in the world immediately. |
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That is debatable, does the existence of Airbnb increase the number of tourists visiting a city? If Airbnb's reduced cost of overnight lodging causes more tourists to visit a city, then yes Airbnb increased demand.
There are a few other possibilities:
1. Tourism demand was growing, and hotels failed to keep up. 2. Airbnb shifted traffic away from hotels and to Airbnb hosts. 3. Airbnb induced demand from people who otherwise wouldn't travel using traditional hotel accommodations.
IMHO Airbnb demonstrated that there was an unfulfilled market for certain types of overnight accommodations (ones with a kitchen and laundry service) that existing hotels were failing to fulfill.
The fact is, at the same $ I'll choose an Airbnb over a hotel for anything more than 1 or 2 nights due to laundry services alone. Basically the entire time I've travelled as an adult has been while Airbnb has existed and as such I've had laundry on site, no way do I want to manage the logistics of a 2 week vacation using just hotels in various cities[1]. If I'm hitting up a bunch of different cities I'll maybe have a hotel for a couple nights in-between Airbnbs where I can do laundry.
> AirBnb should be completely banned everywhere in the world immediately.
If hotels offered better services and didn't try to charge me $5 per pair of socks I want washed, Airbnb would lose a lot of business.
[1] Even more so traveling with kids, as an adult I can reasonably bring 3 or 4 sets of clothes and lots of changes of underclothes, but kids need laundry done a lot, it is not unreasonable for a toddler to cover 2 sets of clothes in filth in a single day!