Hotels have amenities like business centres, meeting rooms, and room service that short-term rentals like Airbnb usually can’t match.
When it comes to price, however, Airbnb is the clear winner for big-city stays.
Forbes recently used data from German hotel reservation website HRS and the AirDNA site to compare prices on traditional and non-traditional lodging options in eight major cities. Reporter Niall McCarthy found that the average hotel prices were consistently higher than average Airbnb prices.
In Tokyo, for example, the average price of a hotel room in January 2018 was $220, whereas a Tokyo Airbnb would cost travellers $93 per night. A stay in a New York hotel this month would typically cost $308 per night, compared to $187 for a typical Airbnb stay.
For Tokyo and New York travellers, choosing an Airbnb over a hotel would reap savings of $127 and $119 per night, respectively. Staying in a short-term rental in Toronto would save $79 nightly, while savings in Paris, Moscow, Sydney, London and Berlin ranged from $57 to $22 per night.
“Naturally, some travellers will still favour booking into a hotel, despite the higher costs involved, arguing that it doesn’t involve the stress of searching for a flat, collecting the key, and potentially having to integrate with strangers in an Airbnb,” noted McCarthy.