Las Vegas visitors who chose Airbnb accommodations over the city’s hotels and motels jumped nearly 50 percent in 2018.
Homeowners in the greater metropolitan area earned around $100 million last year taking in some 718,400 Airbnb guests, the San Francisco-based company said.
In terms of 2018’s visitor volume, the impact was small, around 1.7 percent of the total. But, as Mehmet Erdem, a hospitality professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, noted, “Any increase in Airbnb occupancy means money left on the table by the hotels.”
Earlier this month, during the popular CES tech show, a signal event on the Las Vegas convention calendar, homeowners took in more than 15,200 guests. They paid an average of $140 a night for the four days of the show, according to Airbnb, and saved a bundle in the process, according to Home To Go, a vacation rental search company, which estimated the hotel average at $290 a night.
No surprise, perhaps, that Airbnb use has been growing rapidly both locally and across Nevada over the last few years. Statewide, homeowners took in 882,600 guests last year, earning $123 million in revenue, according to Airbnb, which says 5,600 homeowners are now working with the company statewide.
