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| Hospitality Today | Summer 2017
Airbnb grows 130% in London
to take 9% market share
New research in July from Colliers
International and Hotelschool The Hague
reveals that nights booked in London
with Airbnb rose by 130% to 4.62 million
in 2016, from just over 2 million in 2015.
Furthermore, in the first four months of
2017, there was an additional 55% uplift
in the number of nights booked through
Airbnb compared to the same period
in 2016.
This growth has seen Airbnb’s market
share of London’s overnight visitors
more than double to nearly nine per cent
in 2016, up from less than four per cent
of overnight visitors in 2015.
Bookings in the boroughs of
Westminster; Tower Hamlets; Camden;
Kensington and Chelsea; and Hackney
accounted for nearly 50 per cent of all
Airbnb overnight stays, a trend also
seen in 2015.
Marc Finney, Head of Hotels &
Resorts Consulting commented:
“Our research shows that Airbnb now
represents a notable and growing type of
accommodation offer in the capital. As the
scale grows, the lack of regulation becomes
a greater concern to many, and rightly
so. It is interesting though that despite
the growth, we’re seeing relatively little
negative impact on the hotel sector. In a
lot of ways, Airbnb is a different product
offer, just one that now benefits from better
visibility.”
“Indeed STR data shows that London
hotels held an Average Daily Rate (ADR)
of £143 in 2016. Whereas, the London
Airbnb ADR fell by eight per cent in 2016
to £100; and rates for private rooms fell by
15% to an ADR of £57. This room type also
became more popular than in the previous
year. Overall though, despite the growing
influence of Airbnb, we’re still finding
strong business cases for proposed hotels
in our development advisory work,”
adds Finney.
By the end of 2016, the number of
properties listed on Airbnb had grown by
57% - from 88,162 in 2015 to more than
138,000 properties. Further, in the first
four months of 2017, the number of
active properties listed increased by
80% year on year.
Of the 2016 listings, almost 54% were
offered by hosts with more than one
listing, up from 48%. This reinforces
concerns amongst communities and
authorities about the scale of professional
letting via the site.
Jeroen Oskam, Director of Research at
Hotelschool The Hague added: