Turning homes into hotels . . . Innovation you just can't learn from the corporate workplace or school!

My first Airbnb experience!

I've worked in branded hotels, the world's largest online travel agency, and studied hospitality and online distribution at Cornell's hotel school.  Despite the experiences I've gained over the last decade, none prepared me for one of the biggest movements currently going on in the business world -- the sharing economy.

The travel industry has been tremendously impacted by the rise of the peer to peer sharing economy.  The poster child of this new movement is Airbnb, the online marketplace for people to rent their own home out to travelers who seek a unique, localized, and often times cheaper alternative to conventional hotels.  Although the company is relatively young, it won't be long before its marketplace of lodging substitutes starts taking an enormous bite into hotel market share.  We're seeing it in Spain already.

Already in less than five years, Airbnb grew from 3 air mattresses in the co-founders' apartment all the way to over 300,000 listings in over 34,000 cities worldwide.  To put it into perspective, these supply figures and likely booking values already rival that of some major international hotel chains.  While there are competitor sites such as Roomorama, Wimdu, and Housetrip, the supply footprint of Airbnb dwarfs the pack at the highest aggregate level.

But the massive supply stats aren't the only cool numbers . . . did you know there are 123 people staying in castles on any given night that were made possible by Airbnb?  Yes, that's right . . . frikkin castles.  But there are some bad numbers as well, including the hefty fines imposed on some hosts for illegally renting out their homes.

The disruption that the sharing economy and specifically Airbnb has created in the online travel world has inspired me to start this blog.  It's really for me to organize my own thoughts and research, but I'll share news and provide some points of view on the sharing economy and the key players aiming to revolutionize the online travel space further.

Check out this video below for a good intro to Airbnb given by none other than co-founder Brian Chesky himself.

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