Comic-Con in San Diego is the annual convention where people celebrate comics and cosplay as their favorite characters. It is also emerging as an unlikely battleground in the war between the hotel industry and Airbnb over which is a “price gouger.”
The hotel industry and Airbnb don’t see eye-to-eye on much. One thing they do agree on, however, is that “price gouging” for accommodations is bad. Another thing they agree on: It’s the other guy that does it.
It’s unclear what price gouging even is. “Price-gouging statutes are almost always related to an emergency situation,” says Professor Stephen Barth, an attorney and professor at Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston. And a legal website notes that price gouging is hard to define and so is often described vaguely as charging “unconscionably” high prices.
Airbnb may have fired the first shot in this particular battle, although it’s hard to say, as the two sides have been sniping at each other since Airbnb reached critical mass after its founding in 2010. In April 2017, the home sharer put out a report entitled “Airbnb: Fighting Hotel Price-Gouging, Saving Millions for Consumers.” It claims, “The hotel industry relies on price-gouging to boost its profits and take advantage of big events and other popular travel dates when hotels are largely sold out…hotels make anywhere from 35% to 70 percent more revenue per available room increasing prices on so-called “compression nights’” when occupancy is over 95%.”
The Airbnb report included a chart comparing hotel and Airbnb prices during seven major events including Comic-Con in San Diego 2016. According to Airbnb, during the Comic-Con period (7/20–7/24) the average hotel room price was $261, but the average Airbnb room price was $145, for an average savings per room of $116. With 20,600 total room nights booked on Airbnb, the home sharer claimed an average total savings of $2,389,600 throughout the city. And an Airbnb spokesman claimed, “Roughly 80% of our hosts in San Diego share their primary residence.”
