Wyndham’s economy hotel brand Super 8 is launching ROOM8, a shared room to “accommodate a new generation of road trippers who thrive in communal spaces” offering up to four individual beds sharing dining and entertaining space, including fridge and microwave, arcade and football games and streaming-ready 65-inch wall-mounted TV. Marriott International also recently introduced Studio …

The Finance Professional Show last week saw discussion of investment and funding of Purpose Built Student Accommodation schemes, hotels and serviced apartments, with developers, lenders and service providers talking through the risks and rewards associated with developing property in these growing sectors. PBSAs, hotels and serviced apartments were described as currently offering high yields, but …

The Professional Host Alliance, a trade body for Airbnb hosts and property managers, has been launched, claiming to rebuild confidence in the sector by promoting professionalism among the hosts. Information about the alliance shows why the sector needs more professionalisation so badly, following reports of properties being used as party houses and as bases for …

As we often report here, there is a worldwide movement towards co-living, due to rising costs and shortages of independent housing, especially in cities. There are already tens of thousands of co-living bed spaces in many major cities, including Amsterdam, New York and Bengaluru, and the trend is growing most rapidly in India, where the …

Marriott has reported a drop in net earnings of 23% to $387m (£299m) in its 2019 Q3 results, hit by insurance over the Starwood data security incident late last year. Despite this, RevPAR was up 1.5% worldwide, with more than 17,700 rooms added or converted during the period. Read more:

Airbnb is used in more than 191 countries and regions around the world, and now the platform has doubled the number of languages for hosts and guests to communicate to 62, opening it to more than 4 billion native speakers. Read more:

Airbnb is to ban so-called “party houses” following the death of five people after a Halloween party shooting at an Airbnb rental in the San Francisco suburb of Orinda. A statement at the weekend described this as unacceptable, and said the platform will work to “combat unauthorised parties and get rid of abusive host and …

Private Facebook groups exist where hosts post photos and full names of guests who they believe behave badly, and where they discuss not wanting to rent to certain guests such as people who are Chinese, more than 70 years old or retired women lone travellers. Facebook is investigating and closing down some groups such as …

Airbnb investing US$20 million in digital travel magazine and exploration specialist Atlas Obscura, which offers experiences such as night photography in the Californian desert and trips to see Turkmenistan’s Gates of Hell. Airbnb users can now book Atlas Obscura trips and events via the Airbnb app, while it allows Atlas Obscura to tap into a …

When Marriott International launched its Homes & Villas arm offering 2,000 luxury homes in more than 100 destinations worldwide, it proved that guests wanted longer stays, larger shared spaces, multiple bedrooms, kitchens and other amenities associated with leisure travel. Some rivals struggled with the homesharing market including Hyatt and Accor struggling to make Onefinestay profitable. …