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AirBNB (rBNB), What it is and What it isn't

Jeanine Buckley
Nov 9, 2017
3 min read

Since we have been operating our AirBNB business both in France and in Boston, I'd like to explain what AirBNB means to me. Here in France, there is a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding, so I'd like to clarify some of the expectations we have in terms of hosting visitors to our AirBNB room. First, we are similar to a BNB, which stands for bed and breakfast, meaning that we include breakfast as part of the price. This doesn't seem to be the norm here in France, which is a bit deceptive for non-French coming to stay here, as they are used to having breakfast included. This is also the value-add, as we make homemade bread, yogurt and jellies to make the experience very personalized. And we have an opportunity to get to know our guests at breakfast, so this is very much part of the experience.

Here in France, it seems that people expect to have a complete apartment to themselves, which is definitely one of the options, but when it says private room, it means private room in a shared house. We've had several people arrive thinking they had our entire apartment to themselves. This is more common among vacation rentals, where apartments are rented on a weekly basis, and include linens, dishes, etc. In the US, AirBNB was much more popular for people just wanting a room, not an entire apartment, so we never had this issue.

Private bath in the room. This has been a struggle to explain, which is somewhat surprising, as many small inns in Europe or auberges, don't have private bathrooms, so for example, it's common to see one bathroom per floor. In the US, it's much more common to have private bathrooms even in very small AirBNBs, as both electricity and water are less expensive than in Europe. There's also not an option to select private bath on the AirBNB site. We have even had guests show up then refuse the room because of the lack of a private bath.

The biggest misunderstanding, however, at least here in France, is the perception that AirBNB is stealing business from hotels. According to a global study conducted by STR, a hospitality market research firm, as of Nov 2016, Airbnb listings comparable to hotels numbered 1.0 million, compared to Marriott International, Inc.with 1.1 million rooms. Airbnb's share of market demand and revenues were only 4% and 3%, respectively. In my humble opinion, if hotel guests spend significantly less on hotel rooms, they make up for it in restaurants, tourist activities and other related travel activities.

For example, we live in a very small town, with only 2,000 visitors and a seasonal tourism business. There are no hotels in Domancy, so our AirBNB has introduced people to this region who would have never known it otherwise. And most say they are pleasantly surprised, especially with the number of summer activities, and plan to come back. This means they will buy gas to get here, buy groceries, pay to see the tourist attractions, bringing much needed tax revenue into our small town. I wish AirBNB would let us offer more experiences like mushroom hunting, or cooking classes, but they are still testing these concepts in the big cities. For the time being, we're very happy with AirBNB, just have to convince the neighbors!