Dear Insiders,
Airbnb's strategy "Taking not Sharing" becomes clear today in the second instalment of our big background report by Sarah Douag: She looks at how the platform has successively moved into the classic hotel business. And TripAdvisor appears to copy the concept of Airbnb as well as the bad behaviour.
Airbnb will continue to cause the industry a headache. Professor Frédéric Dimanche from Ryerson University in Canada provides encouragement to the professional hosts though: "Just be hospitable!" he says. And it's exactly this that the aggressively expanding Airbnb and co. will not be able to manage.
Also today, our legal expert Joachim Jungbluth contributes Part 2 of our series on the minimum wage focussing here on the legal aspects of the duty of documentation. Just how sharply this bureaucracy monster will push up personnel costs is a question looked at by the University of Heilbronn and Susanne Stauss has also asked hoteliers how they plan to deal with the change. It remains frustrating, especially in high-end catering, which feels particularly hard hit.
Airbnb, the German Minimum Wage Act and the bed tax/VAT are excellent examples of how often, and also unexpectedly, the industry falls under fire. Meanwhile, rarely a week goes by without a new knock: The mayor of Barcelona has just stopped 40 hotel projects saying that Barcelona is not to be become like the tourist-plagued Venice. And in the US, Google has secretly tested an alert which shows customers falling hotel prices and thus prompts rebookings...
Loud complaints and silent suffering are guaranteed, though this not the right way to meet these challenges. More forceful lobbyists would be desirable here, though are lacking. The hotel chain and the private hotelier are only helped here through research and by spending more time thinking about position and strategy of the hotel. - The full editorial ...
