Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Report [pdf]

Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by spikels on Friday October 17, 2014 @03:41PM (#8472929)

The argument would be that by making it cheaper to visit means more people would go (supply up -> lower prices, higher demand). So even though you spent less, more people are visiting and spending and thus total visitor spending rises.

This seems to be the case in NYC[1]. Despite growth of AirBnB visitors, visitor spending and even hotel occupancy are up. And it's possible these stats may miss many AirBnB visitors - not sure hot they are collected but likely based of hotel occupancy.

[1] http://www.nycgo.com/articles/nyc-statistics-page

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Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by opendais on Friday October 17, 2014 @04:45PM (#8473262)

I'm concerned you casually ignore:

Visitors (international and domestic) to New York City in 2009: 45.8 million Visitors (international and domestic) to New York City in 2008: 47.1 million

Guess when AirBnb became Airbnb.com and popular in NYC? 2009.

I realize correlation != cause but you are claiming a similar argument. Now, you could blame the recession...except it was 2008 when it was at its worst.

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Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by spikels on Friday October 17, 2014 @06:07PM (#8473617)

That's just cherry picking the one down year. 2009 was the worst of the recession and AirBnB was tiny in 2009 relative to today. As AirBnB grew so did visitors.

Visitors (int'l & domestics)

2013: 54.3 million

2012: 52.7 million

2011: 50.9 million

2010: 48.8 million

2009: 45.8 million

2008: 47.1 million

More interesting is that visitor spending and hotel prices and occupancy also did well. I agree that while none of this is definitive proof on anything. However it is not consistent with AirBnB seriously harming either hotels or visitors. Appears to be a win-win.

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Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by opendais on Friday October 17, 2014 @07:54PM (#8474051)

Over 6 years = 54.3-47.1=7.2 2002-2007 = 46-35.3=10.7

Hmm. Now you can blame the great recession but growth did slow.

So lets take 2011 to 2013 [after the Great Recession]: 54.3-50.9 = 3.4 And 2003 to 2005: 42.7-37.8 = 4.9

Notice the difference?

You can't claim this supports your position without cherry picking the data. Its completely worthless.

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Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by spikels on Friday October 17, 2014 @09:44PM (#8474342)

"If you torture the data long enough, it will confess to anything." - Ronald Coase

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Re:Airbnb in the City – New York State Attorney General's Re... by opendais on Friday October 17, 2014 @10:30PM (#8474429)

My point is the data is worthless to support your claim. Comparing time periods isn't "torturing the data".

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