Priceonomics (YC W12) discovers Airbnb lets travellers save up 49.5% on average over hotels nationwide

by Y Combinator6/17/2013

Whenever we travel, our preference is to stay at an Airbnb instead of a hotel. For those of you unfamiliar with Airbnb, it’s a website that lets travelers stay at apartments they rent from hosts. Sometimes you rent the whole apartment, sometimes just a private room in the host’s home.

Arguably, the experience of staying at an Airbnb is better than staying at a hotel. (But really that’s a matter of personal preference.) At an Airbnb, you get access to a kitchen, you can stay in a neighborhood with character (hotels tend to congregate around touristy areas), and you can stay at some pretty unique places.

But is it actually less expensive to stay at an Airbnb than a hotel? Can you rent an entire apartment for less than the cost of a hotel? We suspected that Airbnb rentals are less expensive than hotels, but are they really?

So, we decide to find out. We looked at every major city in America and compared the cost of a hotel to the cost of renting an apartment on Airbnb. We discovered that Airbnb apartment rentals cost 21.2% less than staying at a hotel. And if you’re on a budget, you can save 49.5% if you decide to stay in a private room at a host’s house instead of staying in a hotel.

Read the full article at Priceonomics

Author

  • Y Combinator

    Y Combinator created a new model for funding early stage startups. Twice a year we invest a small amount of money ($150k) in a large number of startups (recently 200). The startups move to Silicon