Airbnb is not cheaper than hotels: study
by Leon Gettler
A study has found that Sydney hotels offer just about as good a deal as an Airbnb booking.
The study by hotel group STR compared prices on 5000 Airbnb bookings in Sydney with average daily room rates in hotels.
The result: the Airbnb booking produced a total saving on average of $1, the price of a scratchy with the chance of getting enough cash to book something really ritzy next time around.
It should be noted that the results varied from place to place. In some spots, Airbnb was cheaper. According to the study, it was on average $19 cheaper a night than what big city hotels could offer. However, it was on average $28 and $39 more expensive respectively in North Sydney and Auburn in the west and $12 dearer in Manly.
.According to the study, Airbnb has more than 16,000 listings and has grown to a gob-smacking 29 per cent of the 55,400-room Sydney accommodation market. And 61 per cent of those listings were for entire homes or units, not a room within a home.
All this might add to weight to the arguments from the hotel industry that Airbnb is being used by commercial operators making mega-bucks renting out properties rather than homeowners looking to share their space.
It’s an assertion denied by Airbnb. It claims a typical host earns just $4600 a year.
Tourism Accommodation Australia, which is campaigning for regulation of the short-term holiday letting market, said the study proved a case in point,
TAA CEO Carol Giuseppi.said Airbnb’s intrusion into the hotel market was a concern.
"The commercialisation of the unregulated short-term accommodation sector is our greatest concern because there has been a rapid rise in multiple-listings in areas such as the CBD, Waverley and Manly, where there is already a significant hotel presence," Ms Giuseppi told The Australian Financial Review
"We are not talking about residents genuinely 'sharing' their home, we are talking about commercial property owners using the new online channels to avoid meeting their body corporate, strata, council and government obligations.”
31st March 2016
