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Hilton guests aren’t clamoring for a Hilton homesharing brand, said CEO Chris Nassetta, so the company won’t be launching one anytime soon.
“We’ve spent a lot of time talking to our customers, and what our customers, at the moment, tell us is that they don’t need [homesharing] from us,” Nassetta said Wednesday during Hilton’s Q1 earnings call. “They have places they can get this, and in a sense, they don’t want it from us, which I found surprising. At the moment, I’m a big believer in focus. We’re going to keep doing what we’re doing.”
There had been speculation that Hilton would enter the homesharing space after Marriott International launched a vacation rental platform earlier this week.
Nassetta called homesharing a “fundamentally different business” than hotels.
“We’re in the business of providing high-quality, consistent, branded experiences. We wrap it in incredible service and also connect it all with loyalty, and as a result, we get a big premium because of the consistent, high-quality nature at all price points. It’s not that [homesharing is] a bad business, we just think it’s a different stay occasion.”
Nassetta went on to add, however, that Hilton could change course in the future, and that Hilton would continue to keep close tabs on the homesharing market, tracking what hotel companies and short-term rental platforms like Airbnb and Vrbo are doing.
Hilton reported first-quarter revenue per available room (RevPAR) growth of 1.8% in the first quarter, with gains in the U.S. (1.8%), the Americas excluding the U.S. (4.4%) and Europe (3.2%). Revenue rose 6.3% for the quarter to $2.20 billion.
Source: travelweekly.com
