Every week it feels like there is a yet another senior figure in the hotel industry commenting on the spectre that is Airbnb.
The earlier tirades against the unfairness of it all, taxes being avoided, safety risks ignored, have gradually made way for a more grudging acceptance that this Airbnb upstart may already have a decent share of the niche "millenial" market.
The reality of course is way different.
NB: This is a viewpoint by Dorian Skoosh, CEO of Skoosh.
Airbnb is just one of a host of similar operations aiding the sharing economy and, in itself, a mere distraction from the bigger picture in which the bottom is about to fall out of the hotel industry, most likely for good.
Living and working in Brighton, the UKs "Silicon Pebble’", I’m aware that I’m closer to the crest of the sharing economy than others.
For example, we’ve now got Tabl offering pop-up restaurants. Individuals, who perceive themselves to be handy in the kitchen, post glossy menus and invite people to dine in their own homes.
Alone, this may appear somewhat gimmicky and perhaps a fad but in the wider context of the sharing economy, where individuals benefit both as consumers and merchants, this is now the direction of trade.
Will Tabl take off? Probably. Will local restaurants be affected in the meantime? Certainly.
As an owner of an OTA for hotels I’ve been following the progress of a far bigger personal threat, the rise of the pop-up hotel, largely characterised in the media as the domain of one company, Airbnb.
Over the last couple of years more and more of my friends have been renting rooms in other people’s houses, rather than booking hotels.
Earlier on they weighed up their options, the relative insecurity of a home stay over and above the secure, if often unmemorable, hotel stay. Now hotels don’t even get a look-in and my friends have even moved on to renting out their own homes.
Truthfully, I wouldn’t comfortably book a hotel any more for myself. The concept feels quite dated. Marriott talks of improving its lobby experience, but really?!
For my part, I don’t ever need to stand in a queue in a hotel lobby again and wait, tired and uncomfortable after a long journey, for the largely disinterested receptionist to fumble through the cards to find my booking.
I don’t need the chatter with the bell-boy in the lift, the awkward tipping, the lottery of whether I get a corner room or a cupboard by the lift, nor the unheeded requests for an iron and ironing board. I’m over that.
On the flip-side, the home-grown B&Bs are steaming ahead in the service stakes.
They’re leaving lovely gifts for their guests. Not chocolates on the pillows but fresh-baked bread, a hand-written guide to the town’s markets, and an array of friends to call in case of an emergency. They’re playing for good reviews, of course.
Marriott is too, but I rarely read a reviewer waxing lyrical about the hotel lobby.
Where next for the old-skool hotel industry?
The big 5-star chains seem to think they’re immune but they’re wrong. Sure, the millennials were never their core customers, favouring instead boutique properties without extensive lobbies, but this is going to travel all the way up and then back down.
The price for 5-stars isn’t set autonomously by 5-stars, it’s set in relation to the demand and price for 4-stars and when they can’t sell their rooms they edge their prices down to 3-stars. Think of it like a pyramid, remove a section and everything above tumbles downwards.
This is not a blip. It’s not a passing ash-cloud or a cyclical recession.
The sharing economy is here to stay because everyone who gets involved in it benefits. It feeds off itself and a growing distrust of corporations. Hotel bookings may currently be bolstered by growing Russian and Chinese markets but the underlying flow is in the other direction.
This is time to start engaging with and investing in the sharing economy, offering home-stays as well as hotels and considering with extreme caution any investments in old-industry.
To that end, I don’t know what the big guys are thinking buying up faltering businesses. Expedia just snapped up APAC rival Wotif for what now looks to be a bargain compared to some of the other deals kicking about recently.
Didn’t they wonder why it was going cheap?
In Other People’s Money, star Danny De Vito offered some wise advice which has stuck with me. Wiley, but earnest, he proclaims:
"Never invest in an increasing share of a declining industry."
Sell!
NB: This is a viewpoint by Dorian Skoosh, CEO of Skoosh.
NB2:Apartment rent image via Shutterstock.