Hotels vs Airbnb – Pros & Cons + Everything You Need To Know

Last Updated on 12th July 2022

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For the longest time, I was wholeheartedly obsessed with hotels. Not just in the sense that I loved going on holiday and staying in a cute hotel room with a bath and a minibar. Oh no.

I would often spend hours on Booking.com or websites such as Telegraph Travel, browsing through the top hotels in X city, or the world’s most luxurious hotels. I was fascinated with the magnificence of it all; the giant beds, the plush pillows, the free mini toiletries and the heavy doors that opened with a “magic” key.

Staying in a hotel was, for me, one of life’s greatest pleasures. That is, until Airbnb came along and threatened to challenge my beloved hotels for a place on my accommodation top spot.

Of course, I’m still obsessed with hotels, only now I have a new-found adoration for Airbnb apartments too.

Which brings me to today’s post: the “debate” of hotels vs Airbnb and the pros and cons of each.

Of course, I’m fully aware that there are many other types of accommodation too (hostels, motels, home-stays, holiday parks, glamping sites, B&Bs, plus more), but today I wanted to focus solely on hotels and Airbnb options to hopefully help you guys decide which one is best suited to you!

Spoiler alert: There’s no right answer!

Hotels

As I mentioned above, my fascination with hotels has been a long-time love affair and I’ve been lucky enough to stay in some truly remarkable hotels around the world.

From the Waldorf Astoria in New York, to The Scotsman Hotel in Edinburgh, to The Lowry Hotel in Manchester and Jumeirah Beach Hotel in Dubai , it’s safe to say that my hotel appetite has been fully catered to so far in my life.

There’s just something about a hotel stay that feels so magical and luxurious to me, even if I’m just staying in a standard Premier Inn or Travelodge, I still get that immense giddiness feeling, regardless of where I’m staying.

So, what’s the deal with hotels? Check out some of the pros and cons of hotels below and how they compare to an Airbnb.

Pros

• Usually very comfortable beds
• Often better location options
• Room service availability
• Often an on-site restaurant/bar
• Breakfast options can be included
• Usually more thoroughly cleaned and pristine
• Often 24/7 staff available; good for check-in

Of course, all of these “pros” are non-exhaustive and a lot of them will apply to Airbnb too. However, from my personal experiences of staying in numerous hotels, these are what I’ve found to be the positives for the vast majority of the time.

A breakfast buffet is undoubtedly my favourite part of staying in a hotel. Naturally, not all hotels in the world offer breakfast, but the ones who do are the real winners in this game!

I also absolutely adore hotel beds. There are very few hotels that I’ve stayed in where the beds have been less than subpar and I just know I can be guaranteed a good night’s sleep whenever I stay in a hotel.

Cons

• Can be very expensive
• Sometimes quite noisy due to many hotel rooms and guests
• Not very personable experience

Aside from hotels often being more expensive than Airbnb, one of the biggest downsides for me is the noise.

Usually, many Airbnb accommodations are situated in residential buildings or even on private properties so it’s not very often that you experience noisy neighbours as everyone else is very accommodating of the other tenants of the building.

However, in a hotel that can facilitate hundreds of guests at a time, it’s safe to say that it can sometimes get a little noisy. The upside to this of course, is that you’re only a phone call (or, you know, an actual walk down) to reception who should be able to resolve the noise issues in no time.

I always use Booking.com whenever I’m booking a hotel as I find them the best and easiest to use!

Booking.com

Airbnb

While I haven’t stayed in quite as many Airbnbs as I have hotels, I have racked up a fair few notches on the old Airbnb bedpost!

Usually, we stay in Airbnb accommodations when the city we’re visiting tends to be more expensive, or at least, the accommodation options are more pricey.

We’ve stayed in an Airbnb in Kuala Lumpur, Paris, Singapore, Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and Portugal (Porto) and we’ve had very different experiences with each and every one.

One of the main reasons that I love staying in an Airbnb is that we usually choose one that has a private bathroom and kitchen. This means not only do we get our own privacy and space, but we can also keep our travel costs as low as possible when it comes to things like food if we have a kitchen as we can make our own meals.

Check out some more of the pros and cons of Airbnb below.

Pros

• Often cheaper (especially when travelling in bigger groups)
• You often get a more local/unique experience
• If they have amenities such as a kitchen, this can keep food costs down while travelling
• More privacy
• Potential to get to know locals (owner of Airbnb accommodation etc)

As I mentioned above, arguably the biggest advantage of staying in an Airbnb in my experience is that when we stay somewhere with a kitchen, we have the option of cooking our own food to help keep travel costs down.

That doesn’t mean to say that we never eat out when staying in an Airbnb, but we usually try and cook at least one meal a day at the apartment to cut down food costs.

I also love that you often get a more local experience when staying in an Airbnb. Even though the locations might not be quite as central or conveniently located as most hotels, it often means that you’re staying in a more local neighbourhood.

Cons

• Probably won’t get cleaned during your stay
• No fresh towels or toiletries
• Can sometimes have issues with check-in
• Often no on-hand assistance
• More risk (hosts cancelling last-minute, reviews not accurately reflective of the property etc)

Like with hotels, it goes without saying that there are a couple of negatives that sometimes come with staying in an Airbnb.

One of the biggest cons for me is the lack of cleaning and fresh towels and toiletries when staying in an Airbnb, especially when the stay is longer than a couple of days.

The apartment we stayed at in Porto was absolutely wonderful, but as we were there for a full week, we had to use the same towels every single day that never really dried properly and by the end of our stay, they were getting pretty gross.

Of course, I’m sure you can always ask your host for fresh towels and bedding, but sometimes (like we’ve experienced numerous times before), the host doesn’t even live in the same city as the Airbnb, so it can be very hard to facilitate this.

Top tips for booking an Airbnb

My first top tip for booking an Airbnb is to read the reviews. All of them.

OK, so maybe not quite all of them, especially if there are hundreds, but reading a decent amount of reviews will give you a good feel of the place and what other guests have experienced while staying there.

Another tip to bear in mind is to check in with your host a couple of days before your stay. We always do this just to introduce ourselves and to casually double check that everything is still OK for our upcoming stay (and to make sure the host hasn’t forgotten about us!).

This isn’t a tip as much as it is more a personal preference, but from my experience with Airbnb, I’d recommend booking a private apartment if possible.

The worst accommodation experience I’ve ever had was over Christmas and New Year in Singapore in 2019. Granted, it was the cheapest place in the city (literally) because Singapore at Christmas ain’t cheap, but we still paid hundreds of pounds and the place was absolutely revolting. I didn’t even take pictures of it because I hated it so much; it was so damp and smelly and we were sharing the apartment with around 10 other guests, including young families (there were around 5 bedrooms I think). The bathrooms were also disgusting; they smelled so bad and there was pee all over the floor every single day. A “cleaner” did come in once a day, but she really didn’t do very much “cleaning” at all.

Anyway, that was the one and only properly bad experience I’ve ever had with Airbnb and that’s probably only because it was the absolute cheapest one available in the entire city.

My point is; don’t share – get something private if you can.

Having said that however, one of my favourite Airbnb stays ever was in Kuala Lumpur in November 2019. We stayed in a beautiful 2 bedroom apartment in KL when Matt’s mum came to stay with us for a week (and then we proceeded to stay on for another 2 weeks as we loved it so much).

The apartment was hosted by a man named Farouk who was the most lovely and generous host I’ve ever experienced, he even took us all out for dinner one night at his favourite local restaurant and paid for the whole thing!

So while sharing an Airbnb with other guests might not be so great, it can often be amazing to try and get to know your host as you never know what could come out of it!

In summation, the debate of hotels vs Airbnb and their respective pros and cons is really entirely dependent on what you want out of your accommodation (frustrating that I can’t give you a clear-cut answer, I know!).

For me personally, which accommodation option I prefer is dependent on so many factors; from where I’m travelling, to how long for, to my budget – it all helps to sway my decision.

If I absolutely had to choose a preference, I think it would have to be hotels. My love affair with hotels has been a long one and for me, there’s really very little that compares to the comforts of a huge hotel bed and the promise of a hot full English breakfast in the morning!

What are your thoughts on hotels vs Airbnb? Do you have a preference or is it situation-dependent like me?

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What are your thoughts on hotels vs Airbnb? What do you prefer to stay in? Let me know in the comments or on Instagram @imjustagirl_16.