CultureMap: Airbnb Multimillion-Dollar Threat to Austin Hotels

CultureMap Austin contacted Source Strategies about the growing prominence of Airbnb in the Texas lodging marketplace. Reporter John Egan delved into Source’s latest quarterly Texas Hotel Brand Report and observed that Austin is leading the charge in adopting this new lodging paradigm.

At nearly $19 million, Austin grabbed the largest chunk of Texas’ Airbnb revenue in the third quarter, according to data supplied to CultureMap. Among the state’s other major cities, Houston ranked second for Airbnb revenue during the quarter, with more than $6.7 million, followed by Dallas, with almost $5.8 million; San Antonio at nearly $3.7 million; and Fort Worth coming in just over $1.1 million.

San Francisco-based Airbnb started reporting revenues to the Texas state comptroller in the third quarter of 2017. Source Strategies collects this data every quarter to keep detailed records on hotel performance in the state. This allows the company to use actual financial data supplied to the government and not rely on individual hotel operators to voluntarily report earnings.

Egan notes that Airbnb-listed properties generated $56.5 million in revenues statewide. It’s not surprising that the Austin market would be at the forefront of this new technology-driven trend and Source Strategies was able to provide some additional insight:

“Our current analysis is that Austin lodging prices are high in general, which gives homeowners an incentive to rent their own property or buy up houses for this purpose,” Paul Vaughn, senior vice president at Source Strategies, tells CultureMap. “Much like other similar disruptive services, like ridesharing, people in Austin are quick to embrace short-term home rentals.”

Read the full article, Airbnb emerging as multimillion-dollar threat to traditional Austin hotels, at CultureMap Austin.