I really don't think hotels are the ones truly at fault here. The way Airbnb competes on price is mostly due to not having to pay for things that hotels have to. The cities & states themselves are the ones who decide what sort of insurance hotels have to have, what sort of zoning rules apply, taxes to levy, rules that they have to follow.
Taxes are very high on hotel stays, generally. And this is usually because it's easier for someone to raise "other people's" taxes rather than their own (e.g. tax the out-of-towners).
People seem to claim things like how "hotels legislate a moat" all the time, but ultimately I really don't think it's the hotels, it's the town/city/state and the citizens thereof that have decided what they want to legislate. And that's inconvenient for a startup looking to "disrupt" things, but I find it quite scummy.