Comparing entire-home AirBnB rentals to hotel room costs seems like an unfair comparison. Renting out an entire home on AirBnB seems much more akin to getting a hotel suite, which is more expensive than a single room.
I agree. But when I get an AirBnb I only go for entire-home (usually an apartment) since I want my own key, privacy. I don't want a bedroom in somebody's house (which is much worse than a hotel). I don't need a hotel suite. So its comparing the two minimum offerings for me: AirBnb entire-home vs standard hotel.
Ok, we added 'entire home' to the title.
This is actually a problem I ran into last weekend. My wife and I were going to a friend's wedding in the suburbs of Nashville and essentially all the rentals available on AirBnB were whole homes, 3 bedrooms or so. The prices were quite reasonable for such homes (and if we'd thought ahead of time we probably could have coordinated with other friends of ours who were going to the wedding) but we don't need all that space for the two of us, so in the end we just got a hotel room. But last time we went to Nashville we were staying in the city and AirBnB was significantly cheaper for a one-bedroom apartment than a hotel room would have been.
Nashville's weird at the moment, hotel rooms are sky-high some weekends. You're less likely to have living circumstances that allow a single room to be rented out in the burbs as well. In town, it's a lot more common for a loft or extra room to be available. Could be all the AirBnb Hoteliers around as well. Hope you had a good weekend.