>But a new kind of "hotel" that consists of one person running a handful to a couple dozen apartments.
The most important part of Airbnb is creating a hotel "chain" or "brand" without having to deal with things like zoning or licensing or insurance for hotels.
While Hilton/Marriott/IHG/Hyatt/Accor/Choice/Wyndham/etc collect 10% to 20% in exchange for putting their brand on the line, Airbnb also was able to create a business where they can take 18% without putting their brand on the line, and keeping the ability to dump all the liability on the hosts. However, I think this is a weakness for Airbnb long term, but they may be able to take advantage in the short term.
Quality control for real world products, especially volatile ones such as abodes rented night after night, are costly and I'm willing to pay a premium to make sure there are some double or triple checks going on.
