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Comment by brd | Hacker News Reader

AirBnB is already worth more than Hilton. I think that's part of the point parent is trying to make.

Hilton owns ~800,000 suites across ~4,000 cities. This is great, but if travel were to drop by 20%, you'd now be paying for and maintaining empty rooms.

The AirBnB network has ~3,000,000 suites across 60,000 cities. Even if they were to comply with all local laws, they would still have margins, and room to grow, and would weather downturns better then traditional hotel chains ('Sharing economy' means that they aren't stuck paying mortgages on rooms they can't rent during a recession.) They can also expand into the traditional hotel chain business, by building or buying properties.

My understanding is that Hilton doesn't own any of the properties, they simply manage them under the Hilton name for their owners.[1]

The practice of franchising is popular within the hospitality industry among most major hotel chains, as the parent company does not have to pay for the maintenance and overhead costs of franchised properties.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hilton_Worldwide#Franchising

> My understanding is that Hilton doesn't own any of the properties

Your own source says that 70% (by rooms) was franchised as of 2013, which suggests 30% is Hilton owned.

Hilton definitely doesn’t own a lot of those hotels or suites.

> 'Sharing economy' means that they aren't stuck paying mortgages on rooms they can't rent during a recession.

I'm not sure I understand, why is this not the case?

It's the hosts who are stuck paying mortgages on rooms they can't rent, not AirBNB. To AirBNB a recession just shows up as a decline in the number of transactions on the site.

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