Airbnb and the like were always going to be an attractive accommodation alternative in big cities where many travellers like the idea of a home-from-home experience.
There have been various studies on its impact including some research back in August from STR Global on the peer-to-peer marketplace in New York showing its share and price differentiation compared with hotel stock and, in many cases, Airbnb comes out with a higher average rate.
This month, it's London's turn and similar to the New York report, the hotel market intelligence firm shows that average frequently Airbnb rates emerge higher than average daily hotel rates deemed comparable for the purpose of the study.
For example, in the majority of the 25 boroughs looked at, Airbnb average rates are higher than the average daily hotel rate and only in three boroughs - Westminster, Hackney and Lambeth - do average daily hotel rates come out higher.
In Westminster hotel ADR is £42 higher than the Airbnb average and in Hackney and Lambeth about £16 higher than the average listing on the P2P platform.
When it comes to price range 52% of Airbnb's listings fall into the £100 to £199 bracket compared to 46% of hotel rooms
The research uses information from Inside Airbnb to formulate criteria such as type of unit, date of last review and number of reviews and crunch the numbers believed to be comparable with a hotel room.
For the research it compares 11,000 Airbnb listings with 134,000 hotel rooms to estimate that the P2P platform has an 8% share of the market.
Westminster is said to house 27% of all hotel rooms and 17% of Airbnb's listings and the combination of Westminster, Camden and Kensington hold 51% of London hotel stock compared with 38% of listings from the rental platform.
While the research might fuel the debate on the sharing economy and local laws and cause some head-scratching on whether Airbnb or hotels represent better value, at very least it's further evidence of the P2P's growing strength.
Further reading:
Airbnb will have a 100% growth rate in 2015, says report
Airbnb threat to hotels may be structural, going beyond tax fight
Airbnb to double in size and begin gradual impact on hotels