[DaveWalk]

I completely agree. But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?

Time will tell if this is a smart move or just AirBnB smashing together something that it already has anyway. But I'm curious if anyone has an insight.

[7Figures2Commas]

> But to play devil's advocate: is there a percentage of business travelers that would prefer an AirBnB experience over the lure of elite status and hotel points?

Looking at the photos of the "business-ready homes" on https://www.airbnb.com/business/signup, I can assure you that there is nothing that would make me prefer the "AirBnB experience" over, say, a stay at the Mandarin Oriental or St. Regis. Hotels generally might get a bad wrap, but the quality of the accommodations and conveniences offered at the higher end of the market are very hard to compete with, elite status and hotel points not even taken into consideration.

[S4M]

I used to go to four stars hotels in London at my previous job for business trips, costing like 100-200 pounds a night, and really I didn't like it so much. The rooms had a TV with some light on it that was disturbing my sleep, sometimes I could hear the ventilation noise, etc. Many small details that were making it, IMO, a not too good experience, and many times I was happy I was not paying for this expensive accommodation with my own money.

[Erwin]

London hotels are very expensive compared to what you get. Having stayed there many times I was always jaded about the more expensive hotels, but visiting luxury hotels in Berlin or Vienna is a much nicer experience, Hyatt or Sofitel (and sure, Mandarin Oriental if you can afford it). E.g. you can go to Berlin and stay at the 5-star Sofitel which has a top 20 (out of 800) hotel rating at Tripadvisor and pay 110€/night for a 4om² room. I've paid the same at a hotel without a window in London once.

Lisabon is another city good for cheap luxury hotels. Trivago is a great hotel aggregator.

[S4M]

Good point about the quality and price of hotels varying according to the city. Guess Airbnb business will be more successful in places like London than Berlin or Lisabon (Lisboa?).

[jedrek]

At the higher end of the market (let's call it SPG and up), I'm also paying for a certain conformity of experience and comfort-related services. I'm paying for a concierge who'll let me use the 4 hours of free time I have effectively. I'm paying for a bar and lobby.

When I travel privately, I'm willing to pay to avoid all that crap.

[eitally]

I would generally prefer it, except for three big things: 1) guaranteed accessibility of management/owner if something goes wrong, 2) nearness to my destination (I stay at a lot of airport hotels, and in a lot of places that's because our offices are near the airport, too), and 3) I often travel with colleagues, and sharing a home with them would just be a little weird. Not necessarily bad, but not something a lot of my coworkers are culturally prepare to accept.

[joshvm]

Yes. I work for a small company and recently had to spend a few nights in a foreign city. Airbnb let us have an apartment in the centre of the city (we were 100m from the central square) for a fraction of the cost of an equivalent hotel. We didn't care about food because we were eating on expenses for each meal and the local restaurants were probably better than hotel fare. All in all it was a very pleasant stay.

I don't care about getting a gift basket or gym membership or being recognised personally at check-in. Perhaps if I travelled significantly more it would make sense. WiFi and a power socket next to the bed is enough.

The downside was mostly that we couldn't instabook, there's still some required interaction with the host. It means you need to be there on time and so does your host. If something goes wrong, you're at the mercy of a random person to fix it whereas in a hotel there's normally some chain of command.

For instance, our outbound flight was 6 hours delayed (different city) and we arrived at 3am. We were thankfully booked into a hostel for the first two nights with 24 hour reception. If we'd gone for Airbnb, we would likely have been sleeping on the street.

We had a great stay because Airbnb worked. If something had gone wrong, it would have been hell.