Competition in the home-sharing space is becoming even more fierce. While Airbnb is still the top website for shared lodging accommodations, its share is shrinking as traditional travel sites expand offerings beyond hotels. In its latest forecast of US sharing economy users, eMarketer has lowered its share projections for Airbnb, even as the company’s user base continues to increase.
This year, Airbnb will grow its US adult user base by 9.6% to 42.1 million. Yet even as its user base grows, it will capture a declining 73.0% of home-sharing website users in 2019. This is the first time its share will drop below three-quarters. By 2023, its share will drop to 69.5%, but will still retain its market dominance.
Online travel agencies (OTAs) like Kayak.com and Priceline.com—both owned by Booking Holdings—are adding home sharing to their traditional hotel offerings. Listings for homes, condos and apartments on Booking Holdings’s sites grew from 500,000 to 6.2 million between December 2016 and Q3 2019 (according to company financial reports), an increase of over 250%.
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