Hacker News Reader

Wow, totally opposite my view. As a family we always want to stay somewhere with a kitchen and a private lounge area - hotel suites are cost prohibitive to this, and a lot less charming.

When finding chalets or cabins/lodges for outdoor trips, Airbnbs are often much better located.

To me it is not so much hotels they need to replace, but a streamlining of booking vacation houses to the point where it is almost as convenient as hotel bookings are, but with vacation house amenities.

You are pretty much on point. I believe that's really AirBnB's market.

Some people are confused and surprised they expect hotel services(airbnb is to blame for this as well) instead of more "adventurious" accomodation offered by private owners.

AirBnB is the eBay of short term rental with the good and bad parts. Booking.com used(and mostly still is) more a kind of Amazon.

Well of course AirBnb is "better placed"; they're ignoring local zoning. It's probably an indication airbnb has a negative impact on the places you're visiting.

AirBnb is great, we've had almost nothing from great experiences if we are just trading anecdotes here.

They also did $3B+ in revenue last year so they are clearly very successful.

In my case it's been both. While it was just my wife and I, the adventure nature of Airbnb was fantastic. In fact, we preferred cheaper places in better location and didn't mind the occasional `wtf` because the upsides were greater. After having kids, we still prefer Airbnb because we can get bigger spaces (more bedrooms, big living rooms), but the lack of consistency is making it more difficult to choose Bnb over hotels now. Now I want less adventure and more comfort. Losing sleep because someone's bed is too soft, or the A/C is too noisy is no longer acceptable. The reality is that we could get all of that on Airbnb, but then it won't be a good deal, it will be as or more expensive than getting a hotel. So it's not so much that Airbnb has changed, but our needs have changed while our purchasing power has remained the same. Just thinking out loud...

Vrbo.com has existed forever and works well for this I think.

I use Airbnb for most vacation travel. Always rent a whole house/flat. Try to use "Super Hosts" and check reviews. Have had success in the US, Scotland, Iceland, and Italy.

- Don't care about the gym.

- I'd rather cook my own food.

- Rent a nice place, upgrade not needed.

- I've never rented a place that had awkward check-in/out times.

- Not sure what you mean? If you rent the whole place, you can come and go as you please.

- Airbnb facilitates online chat with the owner.

- Never had a concern that needed raised.

- Rent a place with laundry

- I'd rather go to a local place than a hotel bar

- I only meet the host about 1/3 of the time and it's always been at the house. The other 2/3, the house has a key box or similar for access.

- Never happened to me

- Never run into weird rules

- Never run into this either

- Never run into this. Hosts have always been professional.

- Refunds through Airbnb have been easy (I have several this year)

To come at this from the opposite perspective:

AirBnB's best-case "ideal" setup has always struck me as just "CouchSurfing[0] but monetised". While AirBnB has received a lot negative press for facilitating the letting of would-be residential property by large-scale professional landlords, the marketing from AirBnB's side has always favoured the "local guide, personal human experience" angle, an angle CouchSurfing has always tried to cover non-commercially.

So in my mind it's a comprehensively bankrupt proposition from either side of the spectrum. It's worse than a hotel (no service), worse than traditional self-catering tourist apartments (more expensive), worse than a long-term let (a LOT more expensive) and infinitely worse than the social, warm-fuzzy personal experience of CouchSurfing (free).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CouchSurfing

Having used it extensively for travelling to places for concerts and festivals, it’s a massive advantage to be able to shop for places that can accommodate 3-8 people for several days at a time.

I don’t want a couch, I want a whole home that our group can share, and for less than the surge price that a hotel will slap on for a single room, we can fit our needs well.

From my original comment:

> worse than traditional self-catering tourist apartments (more expensive)

...is I think what I would consider your use-case to fall under. No?

This isn't something that didn't exist before AirBnB...

> While AirBnB has received a lot negative press for facilitating the letting of would-be residential property by large-scale professional landlords, the marketing from AirBnB's side has always favoured the "local guide, personal human experience" angle, an angle CouchSurfing has always tried to cover non-commercially.

Call me cynical, but "Advertise your product for a use that your core moneymaking market doesn't do" would be a good dark pattern to avoid scrutiny/regulation.

Couch surfing.com is basically dead these days because they've had to collect money to stay afloat. But tbh, I felt like there were a lot of pervy guys on there based on how every girl I met had some story of a guy thinking a free couch meant that she should fuck him in exchange. And couch surfing.com basically had no way to filter that.

You are not talking about Airbnb here. You are saying a whole industry which existed well before hotels, before Airbnb and will exist after Airbnb is not a good fit for you.

That industry was somewhat small before. For it, AirBnB was its Eternal September, as everyone and their dog suddenly became landlords of their (often rented!) home.

I was speaking specifically of AirBnb because a clean, good reviewed room in a central location in any city comes almost at the same cost as a hotel room minus all the other things. Here is the thing, my wife and I did an around the world trip for an entire year and we did not stay once at an AirBnb. I checked AirBnb in every new country and every time it lost against a hotel or a hostel. Most AirBnbs were priced at the level of a hotel room, so if we wanted to splash out (after roughing it for a few weeks) then we booked a hotel for the price of an AirBnb and if we wanted something cheaper than a hotel then hostels beat AirBnb by miles every single time. Especially outside Europe many hostels were offering an unbeatable experience where you could get so much more comfort and value for little money than what the cheap AirBnbs had to offer. If during an entire year of travelling we didn't book an AirBnb once (despite trying) then this speaks for itself IMHO - at least from my point of view.

It sounds like you hired it for specific reasons, finding a low cost option quickly or treating yourself to _all the things_, and I don't think AirBnB tries to do those things well.

Try hiring hotels or hostels for large gatherings: bachelor/bachelorette parties, weddings, family vacations, etc. and I think it will be easier to see the difference. They compete more with vacation rentals, which seems old-fashioned since their online inventory always sucks.

I also think hotels are impersonal. As mentioned in this thread, they market themselves as "having a local experience" and I think that's been an effective message. I have gotten great recommendations from hosts on food, dining, and things not to do and I get to choose the location/theme of my stay too. Do I need to work? Am we relaxing for a couple days? The choose your own adventure aspect means that AirBnB is the starting place for all those searches, not hotels.

I also think there is a real lack of comparable options to hostels in the states so those could be similar jobs here (not abroad). I know of 1 hostel in my hometown near the airport (top 20 US city by pop).

I do agree that great hosts will push up prices to be comparable to hotels and the gap is closing steadily. I think you can still find great middle ground in most cities.

> Try hiring hotels or hostels for large gatherings: bachelor/bachelorette parties, weddings, family vacations, etc. and I think it will be easier to see the difference. They compete more with vacation rentals, which seems old-fashioned since their online inventory always sucks.

I agree with you that AirBnb fits much better into that category. Having said that, I also frequently rent an entire chalet with friends for skiing and even then we use websites which cater specifically for those types of accommodation (especially in France there are so many good websites to book chalets) that the offerings on those websites exceed AirBnb again in every possible aspect.

Besides that, I don't think that investors have valued AirBnb at the current levels with the idea that AirBnb only caters to bachelorette parties and a few odd student gatherings. That market is not nearly as big as AirBnb is currently going for.

I think the key here is the brand, which does go a long way. When traveling to a new place, I don't know what to look up to find whole-place rentals in the area and Airbnb is a default to finding what's in the area. In that way, Airbnb's value is in its listing/"aggregation" platform, not necessarily the listings themselves. After all, there's very little to stop a competitor from cloning Airbnb's model (and those clones do exist).

Personally, while I default to Airbnb's for finding stays when I travel, I've found myself gravitating back towards hotels as of late because they were generally better value propositions for what I was looking for.

You are spot on. The one other thing I cannot take anymore with Airbnb is the hosts making it sound like they make us a favor to stay at their place.

It feels like every other booking ends up with an email like "this is our childhood/lovely/whatever reason place, we are very picky about who we accept and we except you to treat it as your home, can you confirm you would do that?". Every single time I roll my eyes. It's not like I'm paying them more than a hotel for the privilege of staying there.

Airbnb hosts do do some of this stuff - ie. 24/7 checkin is available if you filter for it, as well as other facilities.

But I do agree that it's becoming harder to justify Airbnb use. As it's popularity has risen, it feels like, what was once a cheap stay in someones house, is now the same price as a nice bed & breakfast. And with Hotel's seeing the lost footfall, the gap between a private room in a strangers home and a hotel room with much more privacy has become smaller and smaller.

I've used it every week for about 8 years now for my accommodation when working away but couldn't see using it much in the future

Airbnb is GREAT if you:

- Want to rent an entire house in some specific area

- Want to rent something as cheap as possible / on a strapped budget.

Very cheap travel/plane tickets and accommodation has made international travel very accessible for a lot of people around the globe. So I can absolutely see why some people swear to using airbnb - but for me? I'll rather pay the extra $50 for a hotel room. That's chump change for peace of mind, IMO.

Airbnb often is more expensive than hotels.

But yes, for an entire house for a group of 4 - 6 people, it's great.

I never find anything cheap on Airbnb.

Actually in my mind, Airbnb is always more expensive than a hotel. Each trip I end up checking both options and I'm amazed at how expensive Airbnb ends up being after you add all the hidden fees.

I think the main use case is for big groups and gathering. When you want to stay with 10 people. And even then, it's still more expensive than 6/7 hotel rooms (if you come as a couple you would only use a single room).

I think Airbnb manage to convince a lot of people that they are always a better deal than hotels. I see a lot of my friends never checking regular hotels anymore.

> Airbnb manage to convince a lot of people that they are always a better deal than hotels

Strong agree. They have this in common with Amazon. They used to be cheaper but now aren't anymore, but customers don't comparison shop.

Want to rent something as cheap as possible

I don't know about the US, but certainly in Europe a shared room in a hostel is always much cheaper than anything on AirBNB if you're really on a budget.

Like most startups, I think Airbnb was mostly competing on price. But I was planning a weekend trip recently and it wasn't any more money to stay in a hotel. I don't see the apeal at all.

Completey agree. I thought AirBnB was great back in the day but these days I only find it 'useful' (read: cheaper) when sharing a large property with friends. 99% of the time a 4*+ hotel cost is similar if not £20 - £40 more overall which I would be willing to pay because of your list above.

- Many airbnbs have a spa, especially those outside cities. I've also seen saunas and gyms

- Airbnb plus or Airbnb Luxe can have breakfast or groceries basket

- Early check in or late check out is possible. Just discuss with your host prior to confirming reservation. Unless they have a guest coming just after or their cleaning crew can't make it work, they will find a way to make it work

- Many Airbnbs have 24/7 access. Many have electronic door locks

- You can get local, custom recommandations by discussing with the host, and more. Same for complaints

- Flower service, laundry, babysitting options are available with Airbnb Luxe

On the other hand, if your goal is to socialize, talk to hotel staff, talk to other travellers, then of course, airbnb are NOT an option for you. Airbnb doesn't have to provide everything. I can tell you they are great for families looking for a vacation home.

The house rules of some Air BnBs are ridiculous. Things that wouldn't be an issue at a hotel can get you booted out of an Air BnB like bringing 2 people up to your room.

To me it sounds like there are several startup opportunities there.

How would a solution to each of those for airbnb look like?

Don't forget wealthy boomer homeowners shaming you in reviews with "not respectful guests" if you don't spot shine the place despite a $90 cleaning fee

airbnb made 8am meetings in NYC possible for me as someone living in Philly