A report from AirDNA, a short-term rental analytics company, reveals that the majority of travelers now prefer renting entire residences rather than staying with hosts on Airbnb. In May 2023, only 16% of U.S. short-term rental bookings were for private rooms, an all-time low. Interestingly, more than 30% of active listings in the U.S. are managed by hosts with 21 or more properties, surpassing single-property hosts at 26%. AirDNA's data analysis indicates that larger property portfolios are associated with slightly lower guest review scores, likely due to reduced personal interaction with management companies. Travelers must weigh their preference for personalized experiences against the convenience and professionalism offered by larger-scale hosts, while medium-sized hosts may offer a sweet spot of service and professionalism.

"On the surface, this seems to suggest that properties managed by big companies offer a consistently worse experience. But Jamie Lane, chief economist at AirDNA, suspected something else was going on.
“There’s typically lower review scores when you’re reviewing a company rather than a person,” Lane says, suggesting that meeting and interacting with an individual rather than a management company leads guests to leave higher scores."

As a traveler, would you prefer an Airbnb host with one property or a hundred?

What More Airbnb Mega-Hosts Means for Travelers

A Megahost Might Run Your Airbnb: Why It Matters (NerdWallet)