Airbnb taking up more room in travellers’ holiday planning

AIRBNB is making strong gains on “traditional” tourism accommodation, despite the legality of the short-term rentals remaining unclear.

The Deloitte Tourism Hotels Market Outlook report shows nights in “alternate” accommodation such as Airbnb and other private rent- als increased 8.7 per cent in the last year.

In contrast, the growth in domestic visitor nights spent in hotels slowed from 9.7 per cent to 1.2 per cent last year.

The increasing popularity of the operator was driven predominantly by the leisure market (11.5 per cent growth) and people visiting friends and relatives (9 per cent).

The report noted “partnerships such as that between Qantas and Airbnb, which allows guests to earn frequent flyer points during Airbnb stays, were serving to consolidate Airbnb as a mainstream accommodation option”.

Tourism Accommodation Australia chief executive Carol Giuseppi said the report highlighted what it had long argued — Airbnb was growing at the expense of hotels.

“Our members were very angry with (Qantas’) decision to support Airbnb when our hotels have played such a cru- cial role supporting their frequent flyer program,” Ms Giuseppi said. “Unregulated shortterm operators who advertise through online platforms such as Airbnb are moving increasingly into commercialised operations that are quite different from the original ‘share’ concept.”

But Deloitte Access Economics’ Bryon Merzeo said he did not believe the gains were hurting more traditional tourism accommodation providers.

“(Airbnb) is growing quite strongly but we’re still seeing historic occupancy rates in hotels in capital cities,” Mr Merzeo said.