Recently, Brian Chesky, the CEO of Airbnb, declared that 'hotels as the future of Airbnb', the company is including more hotels on its platform, especially independent and boutique properties in urban locations and destinations with limited home-sharing supply.

This latest move aims to fill gaps in availability, attract more travelers.

This is part of Airbnb's "beyond the core" strategy to become an "everything app" for travel. In other words: Airbnb is becoming another OTA. Why?

Recently, Airbnb started charging its short-term rental (STR) hosts 15.5% commission and dropped its guest-facing service fee, mimicking Booking..com. The volume of short-term rental roomnights generated by Booking is already exceeding 85% of Airbnb's volume of roomnights.

Airbnb feels threatened for its core STR business and the above are defensive moves by the company.

The question is: do hoteliers need yet another mega OTA?

Here is my take:

The novelty of Airbnb has worn off. Short-term rentals has become a mainstream, commoditized product.

This is the reason why Airbnb needs hotels to reinvigorate its product line, and ultimately its bottom line.

Another reason is that Airbnb is mimicking its main rival Booking.com. Why? The volume of short-term rental roomnights generated by Booking is already exceeding 85% of Airbnb's volume of roomnights. Airbnb feels threatened for its core STR business and these are all defensive moves by the company.

This is why Airbnb is becoming another boring OTA and is venturing into hotels, local experiences, why not air?

The only difference is that Booking and Expedia have mastered the science of being boring OTAs. Plus, they have amassed huge 200 plus million member loyalty programs, while Airbnb has none.

For many independents hotels - the main target of Airbnb - the direct vs indirect (OTAs, bedbanks, etc.) online booking ratio is negative 1:3 to 1:4 and even 1:5, i.e. only 20% of bookings are direct. Why do the independents have such an overdependence on the OTAs? Systemic underinvestments in talent, technology and digital marketing are the main reasons.

So, no, hotels do not need another mega OTA.

Max Starkov
Hospitality & Online Travel Tech Consultant & Strategist

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