A new survey conducted by Goldman Sachs claims just 40% of travellers are likely to go back to staying in conventional hotels after using home sharing services such as Airbnb.
“If people have stayed in peer-to-peer lodging in the last five years, the likelihood that they prefer traditional hotels is halved,” the survey said.
“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.”
In contrast, those that have not yet used Airbnb-style lodging services, 79% were more likely to prefer conventional hotel stays.
The survey polled 2,000 US consumers and found Airbnb and other peer-to-peer services are finding favour with a wide cross section of the population, and not only Millennials.
It said 67% of consumers between 18 and 24 had stayed in a private home in the last year, while that rose to 75% for travelers in the 25-34 age range.
It found 64% of respondents aged between 35-44 had stayed in a P2P rental.
“Last year, 11% of respondents said they had used a P2P site like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey. That number increased to 16% in the final quarter of the year and during that same time frame, familiarity increased from 24% to 35%,” it said.
