By Professor Stefan MichelStefan Michel, Elena Chabrier de Lassauniere, Maxim V. Lyadvinsky and Mario Mahmoud Majzoub
Hilton Inc. is one of the biggest players in the hospitality industry. It has a market capitalization of $20 billion which comes just after Marriott with a market capitalization of $34 billion.
Just in recent years, peer-to-peer economy has emerged and imposed a threat to Hilton. This economy is based on a decentralized model whereby individuals interact to buy or sell goods and services directly with each other, without intermediation by a third-party. Among the biggest players in the peer to peer(sharing) economy is Airbnb, that was founded in 2008 and showed unprecedented growth until 2017. As a privately held start-up, Airbnb is valued at $30 billion, based on the company’s latest round of funding, serving over 3 million listings in more than 65,000 cities in close to 200 countries.
Airbnb CEO has made it clear that their plan is to become a full-blown hospitality brand, one that delivers a seamless end to end experience to its customers. Meanwhile Hilton Inc. is reacting to the threat posed by Airbnb through denial. The CEO claims that Airbnb is not a threat to their value proposition. The case analyzes in which segment (leisure or business) Airbnb and Hilton inc. are winning or losing.
