With Airbnb reporting that stays nearly doubled in Kansas from 2017 to 2018, the home-sharing service is clearly growing its slice of the hospitality pie.
Does that mean, however, that hotels and motels are losing out on revenue? According to numbers supplied by the company, about 87,000 guests stayed at Airbnb properties in Kansas last year. That’s up from about 47,000 in 2017.
Locally, Airbnb counted 7,730 guest arrivals in Wichita in 2017. For last year’s tally, the company recorded stays by county instead of by city, with the Sedgwick County number growing to about 13,000 guest arrivals. Most of those, obviously, were in Wichita.
Jerry Keeble and Winnie Chien, a husband-and-wife Airbnb host from Park City, rent out three properties in Sedgwick County, including a home in the Delano neighborhood.
Chien says she’s not so sure that Airbnb guests take much of a bite out of the hotel and motel pie in Wichita.
“I think they are different clients, different guests,” Chien says.
(Read more: Wichita Business Journal)