Do Airbnbs, Lyfts and Ubers work for travelers?
The sharing economy offers two major opportunities for travelers to depart from the conventional: Airbnb rather than hotels for accommodations, and Uber/ Lyft in place of taxis for local transportation. A few recent studies have looked at comparative costs in various major cities around the world, and the overall answer to the “which is best” question remains as you might expect: It depends on where you are and how you prefer to travel.
The most recent study, from FitSmallBusiness, compares accommodation costs for the 15 most visited cities in the U.S.
The final rankings are based on a mixture of price and other factors relevant to small business travelers but also relevant to vacationers.
The seven cities where hotels outscore Airbnb, in decreasing order of hotel advantage, are New York, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Seattle, San Diego and San Francisco.
The seven cities where Airbnb outscores hotels, in decreasing order of Airbnb advantage, are Anaheim, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Antonio, Austin, St. Louis and Miami Beach.
Airbnb and hotels tie in Orlando.
A new study from UK-based Compare the Market covers 52 major cities worldwide. And the results do not fully agree with the FitSmallBusiness data:
Hotels beat Airbnb by $189 per night in Santa Cruz, California, and by more than $50 a night in Mallorca, Venice, and San Diego. Hotels beat Airbnb by smaller amounts in Austin and Naples, Italy.
Airbnb beats hotels by more than $100 a night in Providence, Geneva, Washington, Paris, New York, Honolulu, Florence, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, by $44 to $88 per night in Toronto, Athens, Seattle,
Lyon, Portland, London, Milan, Porto, Rome, Copenhagen, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Asheville, Edinburgh, and Vancouver, and by $15 or more in Madrid, Prague, Antwerp, Barcelona, Nashville, New Orleans, Brussels, Bordeaux, Malaga, Sydney, Vienna, and Lisbon.
Costs virtually tie in Berlin, Bologna, Boston, Dublin, and Oakland.
Cost comparisons are based on average Airbnb rates provided by AirDNA and average prices for 3-star hotels derived from Kayak.
I tend to favor the less-comprehensive results from FitSmallBusiness, primarily because I don't trust the hotel rates the CompareTheMarket folks found for a bunch of cities. Average nightly three-star hotel rates of $339 in Providence, $256 in Las Vegas, $198 in Salem, $194 in Asheville, $304 in Honolulu, and $266 in Nashville seem over the top. I've stayed in several of those cities in three-star or better hotels for a lot less.
My take, overall, is that Airbnb can offer accommodation at a lower cost than traditional hotels in much of the world. But that advantage may be shrinking, as more and more cities limit the ability of local homeowners to convert their properties to Airbnb use. You already see that in New York and San Francisco, where local authorities are clamping down on residential con versions. Even more than the dollar comparisons, however, in many cases, the Airbnb experience, especially at the low end of the price scale. For most travelers, the choice is dictated more on the experience than the price.
On the transportation side, two current reports compare taxi and Uber costs:
Lifewire concludes that Uber is typically cheaper than taxi for long trips, where drivers can go the speed limit.
Taxis are better for short trips in traffic.
RideGuru found that of 20 large U.S. cities, Uber beat taxis in all but New York, at least when surge pricing was not in effect.
My take is that, for now, Uber seems to have the advantage over taxis in many parts of the world. But that, too, could change: Surge pricing can make a big difference. For the long haul, Uber is losing money, and Uber drivers claim they're underpaid, so its price advantage may not last long.