Here to Stay: Increasingly Mainstream Private Accommodations Reshaping Lodging Distribution

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwired - February 02, 2017) - No segment of the travel industry has felt the effects of new product categories and distribution models as much as lodging. According to new research by travel industry research authority Phocuswright, while hotels represent the U.S. travel industry's fastest-growing sector, they now compete with a new and increasingly popular product category: private accommodation.

For the first time, Phocuswright's U.S. Online Travel Overview Sixteenth Edition reveals shifts in traditional hotel & lodging segment distribution once private accommodation is added to the mix. These rentals account for close to one fifth of the entire hotel, lodging and private accommodation (HLPA) market, and their bookings are increasingly growing faster than hotels'.

Once a largely offline alternative reserved mostly for family vacations, private accommodations have moved online thanks to intermediaries like Airbnb, HomeAway and FlipKey. The success of these pure play private rental sites has attracted the attention of Expedia and Booking.com, which have made big moves to build inventory, including Expedia's US$3.9 billion acquisition of HomeAway in 2015.

"Hotels are just beginning to see the impact as travel shoppers consider hotel rooms alongside apartments and vacation homes," says Phocuswright senior research analyst Maggie Rauch. "And when we add those private accommodations to the traditional hotel segment, the hotel, lodging and private accommodation online marketplace is more dominated by intermediaries than traditional lodging on its own."

In the future, private accommodation will play an increasingly disruptive role in the traditional hotel and lodging distribution mix as they account for a greater and greater share of traveler spend.

Phocuswright's U.S. Online Travel Overview Sixteenth Edition includes focus on the traditional hotel/motel marketplace in the U.S., with private accommodation figures integrated into 2016 and 2018 projections to give a glimpse of its impact on the lodging marketplace as a whole. The report also shines the spotlight on additional segments: air, car rental, vacation packaging, rail and cruise.

ABOUT PHOCUSWRIGHT INC. (www.phocuswright.com)
Phocuswright is the travel industry research authority on how travelers, suppliers and intermediaries connect. Independent, rigorous and unbiased, Phocuswright fosters smart strategic planning, tactical decision-making and organizational effectiveness.

Phocuswright delivers qualitative and quantitative research on the evolving dynamics that influence travel, tourism and hospitality distribution. Our marketplace intelligence is the industry standard for segmentation, sizing, forecasting, trends, analysis and consumer travel planning behavior. Every day around the world, senior executives, marketers, strategists and research professionals from all segments of the industry value chain use Phocuswright research for competitive advantage.

To complement its primary research in North and Latin America, Europe and Asia, Phocuswright produces several high-profile conferences in the United States and Europe, and partners with conferences in China, Singapore and the United Arab Emirates. Industry leaders and company analysts bring this intelligence to life by debating issues, sharing ideas and defining the ever-evolving reality of travel commerce.

The company is headquartered in the United States with Asia Pacific operations based in India and local analysts on five continents.

Phocuswright is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Northstar Travel Media, LLC.

ABOUT NORTHSTAR TRAVEL GROUP (www.northstartravelgroup.com)
Northstar Travel Group is the leading provider of business-to-business news, information, data, transactions and custom content solutions for the travel, meetings and hospitality industries. Brands under the Northstar umbrella include Travel Weekly, Travel Weekly China, Travel Weekly Asia, TravelAge West, Business Travel News, Phocuswright, Meetings & Conventions, M&C China, Web in Travel and Inntopia. Northstar is the industry leader in marketing solutions, custom content communications, content licensing and database management serving the travel and meetings industries. The company produces more than 52 face-to-face events, taking place in North and South America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East. Northstar is based in Secaucus, NJ, and is a portfolio company of Wasserstein & Co. www.northstartravelgroup.com

ABOUT WASSERSTEIN PARTNERS IV (www.wasserco.com)
Wasserstein Partners IV is a mid-market buyout fund managed by WP Capital Management, the private equity investment company formerly associated with Wasserstein Perella Group and Wasserstein & Co. The firm manages capital on behalf of institutional and individual investors. Its investment activities are focused on the media and communications, consumer products and water and industrial sectors. WP Capital's investment team has completed 27 platform acquisitions and 49 add-on acquisitions over a 23-year period. WP Capital is located in New York.

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