Hotels Are Starting To Realize They Have One Thing Airbnb Doesn’t: A Lobby | qz.com
It may have taken them a while, but it’s fair to say that the hotel industry finally sees Airbnb as a bona fide threat. And that threat is much of the reason why hotel groups are launching new products and concepts to go after the same young, lucrative, and digitally-inclined demographic that Airbnb so effectively lures.
However, in trying to emulate the company—which is valued at more than Hilton and Hyatt combined—hotels might be missing an obvious beat. As boutique hotel pioneer Ian Shrager told Skift recently, hotels already have something that Airbnb can’t offer: communal space (known by most folks as the hotel lobby). Sure, it may be a standard, if not a bit ho-hum, concept. But the tried and true hotel lobby offers unique advantages for a variety of reasons—chief among them, as Shrager pointed out, is that Airbnb (with its inventory of private homes) “can’t do it.”
