As for other ideas - what else do hotels spend money or hire people to do (cleaning was my example)? Those are the natural areas of expansion.
That way AirBnB just acts as an intermediary and doesn't need to deal with the fussy details.
Or at least thats what wikipedia says (1).
like many hoteliers, Hyatt operates hotels for a fee as a management company, and does not usually own the real estate
(1)http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkway_collaps...
Sometimes a hotel brand owns the hotel building, sometimes a hotel brand manages the hotel, and sometimes they do both. But in the vast majority of cases, the hotel brand is in a franchising agreement with the hotel owner, and many times the hotel owner will hire a management company to deal with running the hotel itself.
I'd also like some way of organising the key drop-off.
A couple of companies are already doing this as a standalone service: