How Airbnb is disrupting the hotel business in Mexico

According to a new study by Americas Market Intelligence (AMI), guests are more satisfied with Airbnb in terms of lodging experience and are more likely to recommend the platform to family and friends.

In Mexico, Airbnb is preferred over hotels by 56% of millennials. Additionally, more Airbnb guests are satisfied by their lodging experience (81% compared to 74% for hotels) and more of them are likely to recommend Airbnb to family and friends (63% vs 47% for hotels).

These results are from a recent study conducted by AMI, a market intelligence and strategy consultancy in Latin America, which explored the attitudes of travellers in Mexico towards both hotels and Airbnb.

“It’s clearly having a disruptive effect on the hotel industry”

“Airbnb has grown rapidly in Mexico in recent years, with listings expanding by 53% in 2018,” said Ricardo Alvarez, director of the Consumer Services/Ecommerce Practice for AMI. “Since it’s clearly having a disruptive effect on the hotel industry and we study disruption in Latin America, we wanted to examine how Mexican travellers feel about both Airbnb and hotels to understand the disruption drivers.”

However, the company’s data shows that 81% of respondents favour hotels over Airbnb when travelling to a dangerous city. Nearly twice as many travellers favour hotels for business travel over Airbnb, while Airbnb guests are slightly more likely to have what they term an “exceptional” experience compared to hotel guests.

Airbnb guests aged 18-34 are more than twice as likely to recommend it rather than hotels. Overall, Airbnb guests are more likely to recommend it over hotels (63% vs 47% for hotels)

“While Airbnb’s advantages in certain areas suggest why it’s been successful in disrupting the hotel industry, hotels also have advantages they can use to retain or expand their market share. They just need to understand them, and research like this could help,” added Alvarez.