Loading
A new report from online hospitality marketplace Airbnb is overtly self-serving — yet somewhat revealing.
The report, an analysis of hotel vs. Airbnb room prices and booking data in Naples from Memorial Day weekend last year, shows a wide gap in rates. The average Airbnb room price per night that weekend, for example, was $97, the company says, less than half the $209 average rate at Naples hotel rooms. The average Airbnb savings for the weekend, the nights of May 27-29, 2016, was $336, the report adds.
Naples is one of some 20 cities nationwide cited in Airbnb's analysis entitled “How Corporate Hotel Chains Seek to Exploit Supply and Use Compression Pricing to Raise Rates for Consumers.” Airbnb, using data from AAA, says the average three diamond-rated hotel nationwide charged $215 a night for Memorial Day weekend 2017, up 18% over 2016. “While some price fluctuation in all types of accommodations can be attributed to basic supply and demand forces and is appropriate,” the report states, “there have been countless examples of the corporate hotel chains engaging in explicit price gouging.”
Naples shows up again as one of three national examples of what Airbnb calls obvious price gouging, with one property charging $429 a night.
While to Airbnb, the rate analysis is proof it can win the PR battle against the traditional hotel industry, to some in Naples, the report is, at best, old news. This is a town, after all, where in season the Ritz-Carlton, Naples on Vanderbilt Beach Road gets $1,000 a night for a room.
Your free article limit has been reached this month.
Subscribe now for unlimited digital access to our award-winning business news.
Join thousands of executives who rely on us for insights spanning Tampa Bay to Naples.
