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18 Aug, 2015

Paris deluxe hotels counting the cost of the Airbnb revolution – The Independent

Well-to-do holidaymakers are streaming out of Paris’s grandest suites and in to luxury flats: or so say France’s oldest and most prestigious hoteliers. They have declared war on Airbnb for taking their customers in the world’s most visited city and say the flat-sharing site is not playing by the same rules.

“It’s an unfair competition,” Didier le Calvez, head of UMIH Prestige, the luxury arm of the hotel union UMIH and managing director of the Five-star Le Bristol hotel, tells The Independent. Paris has become Airbnb’s top home-sharing destination, with more than 50,000 apartments on offer. But a new breed of luxury lettings has been luring in well-heeled customers, with up to 400 hosts demanding more than €500 (£55) a night.

Read the rest: Paris’s most prestigious luxury hotels are counting the cost of the Airbnb revolution – Europe – World – The Independent