Goldman Sachs: More People Who Use Airbnb Don’t Go Back To Hotels

A new survey conducted by Goldman Sachs has found that only 40 percent of consumers polled were likely to return to hotels after using San Francisco-based Airbnb or other “peer-to-peer” services.

That compared to 79 percent of travelers who hadn’t used the service, who said they were likely to prefer formal lodging, Bloomberg reports.

“If people have stayed in peer-to-peer lodging [P2P] in the last five years, the likelihood that they prefer traditional hotels is halved (79 percent vs. 40 percent),” said the survey.

“We find it interesting that people ‘do a 180’ in their preferences once they use P2P lodging. They move directly from preferring traditional hotels to preferring P2P accommodations,” it added.

The survey queried 2,000 consumers and was led by Goldman Sachs Managing Director Steven Kent. It broke down the demographics of who uses services like Airbnb and found it’s not just Millennials using them.

“While 67 percent of respondents between 18 and 24 said they had used a home-sharing service in the past year, 75 percent of those between 25 and 34 said yes, and 64 percent of those between 35 and 44 also had,” the survey found.”Among those older than 44, the use ranged from 29 percent to 23 percent.”

Another key finding? Airbnb or P2P users aren’t just couch-surfer types looking for a bed: 70 percent of those polled with an income between $70,000 and $119,000 said they’d used such a service in the last year. Respondents were also more familiar with alternative lodging this year.

“Last year, 11 percent of respondents said they had used a P2P site like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey,” the survey found.”That number increased to 16 percent in the final quarter of the year. During that same time frame, familiarity increased from 24 percent to 35 percent.”

Airbnb was founded in 2008 and is now valued at $25.5 billion.

Source: San Francisco Business Times, Riley McDermid
Photo: A new study says more people who use services like Airbnb don’t go back to hotels. (Andrew Harrer, Bloomberg)