Airbnb offered 64,000 beds last year in Switzerland. The platform had hunted particularly the conventional hotel guests, so an expert. Rent a villa by the lake over a weekend, or book a charming chalet in the mountains for the holidays: The offer of the travel platform Airbnb in Switzerland is popular.
Airbnb’s Continuous Growth
May 2017Airbnb grows on the expenditure of hotels
According to the Economic Research Center KOF, 64,000 beds were offered for booking via the online platform at the end of January 2017. This is a market share of 10% and – according to an evaluation of the Valais University of Applied Sciences – has tripled since 2014. The classic hotel industry provided 44% of the offered beds last year.
Airbnb is particularly strongly represented in urban regions: in Zurich, 16% of the offered beds are based on Airbnb, while in the region of north-west Switzerland it is as much as 21%. But also in the Valais, a canton with many holiday apartments, Airbnb was able to grow.
Airbnb will continue to grow in the future
In its analysis, the KOF study only takes into account the number of beds offered via Airbnb and not the actual booked nights. Nevertheless, KOF Director Jan-Egbert Sturm assumes that Airbnb will continue to grow in the future, even with the actual overnight stays.
“The tripling of the offer within three years indicates that there is also a demand for it,” says Sturm. This assumption is confirmed by the latest figures from Airbnb. On request the company informs that last year 440,000 guests booked an Airbnb offer. In 2015 it was still 300,000. “It can be assumed that the trend will continue in the coming years”, says Sturm.
Hotel guest evade towards Airbnb
As a result of this development, “the competitive pressure on the classic hotel industry is likely to increase”, concludes the authors of the KOF study. Sturm expects that Airbnb will continue to grow significantly stronger than the conventional hotels and will be able to further grow on the expenditure of hotels.
“In the last few years, hotels have seen zero growth in Switzerland, while Airbnb offers more and more beds,” says Sturm. Therefore one could assume that guests who have stayed at the hotel so far have changed to Airbnb and will further do so in the future. According to Airbnb, the typical Swiss host in 2016 divided his home on a total of 23 days and thus earned 2800 francs a year.
Switzerland Tourism strikes back
The growth of Airbnb also frightens the hotel sector and tourist industry. In a leaflet, the association Hotellerie Suisse gives tips on the circumstances in which it’s meaningful for hotels to offer their rooms also on Airnbn. However, the hotel sector remains critical: it calls for “equally long spies”: This means that Airbnb providers, such as the hotels, collect the resort tax, adhere to the fire protection and their guests must report to the authorities.
Read the complete story HERE.
Source: 20min.ch
