How Hotels Are Luring Millennials In The Era Of Airbnb

Since its founding in 2008, Airbnb has been cited as a huge disrupter in the hotel industry, heralded as the next big thing in travel as consumers embraced the sharing economy. As more young travelers ditched traditional hotels in favor of Airbnb’s funky local lofts, treehouses and houseboats, some wondered if it would crush old-school hotel chains’ business. The answer is, not yet. While Airbnb’s growth rate has been impressive (from 47,000 guests worldwide in the summer of 2010 to 17 million in the summer of 2015), it actually hasn’t yet made a dent in hotel chains’ bottom lines. From 2014 to 2015, a key metric known as RevPAR—or revenue per available room—for U.S. hotels was up 6.2 percent, from $74.11 to $78.71. And from 2010 to 2015, RevPAR rose from $58.45 to $78.71, according to hotel industry research firm STR. The rise of the sharing economy has caused hotel chains to do some soul searching and shake up their business models to appeal to the all-important millennial traveler. Eighty-two percent of millennials took a vacation in the past 12 months versus 75 percent of all U.S. consumers. Click here to read the Adweek article.