AP Photo/Eric RisbergOver the last few weeks, the underground war between home-sharing startup Airbnb and the hotel industry has bubbled to the surface. But as the war of words and lobbying budgets between Airbnb and hotels escalates, it's worth looking into the future and realizing that, in the long run, both sides actually need each other. For now, Airbnb offers an orthogonal competing service to hotels: the $30 billion-valued San Francisco-based startup built a lodging marketplace with new inventory that hotels have never provided. This is Airbnb's biggest advantage, and why the hotel industry has tried to pull the levers of government on its side. Some of the regulatory road blocks may have been instigated by the hotel industry, but they aren't going away.

Source: Forbes May 05, 2017 21:22 UTC