Airbnb bookings are up 59 percent, but muted in major markets

Airbnb's first three months of 2017 are marked with muted growth rates in 14 of the short-term rental service’s top 20 metropolitan markets. Slice Intelligence reports that Los Angeles and New York, the markets with the largest number of Airbnb bookings, were impacted the most by slowed growth.

While bookings aren't increasing as quickly as they had been previously, bookings overall are up. San Francisco, the third largest Airbnb market, saw bookings increase by 34 percent. Similarly, Nashville and Boston experienced increased growth in bookings during the period. Overall, Airbnb bookings jumped up 59 percent so far this year.

Data shows the majority of travelers still stay exclusively at hotels. Eighty percent of travelers in the last three months exclusively booked online with a traditional hotel. That said, the overlap between these travel models are increasing. Twenty percent of travelers in the last three months opted to stay at either an Airbnb for some or all of their nights away from home. That's an eight percent increase from the first quarter of 2015.

Airbnb guests stay a full day longer than travelers who book with traditional hotel chains. Since the start of 2016, Airbnb guests have booked their stay for an average of 3.4 nights. In contrast, guests at regular hotels stayed for just two nights, enough for a weekend getaway.

Airbnb's growth continues to be driven by millennial travelers. Almost half of Airbnb patrons in the last year have been between the ages of 18 and 34. Only 29 percent of guests who booked through traditional hotel sites were members of the millennial generation.

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