As the holiday travel season gears for a ramp-up, rentals site Airbnb and hospitality group Marriott are intensifying their attacks on each other.
The latest punch, thrown by Airbnb, is a letter to Arne Sorenson, CEO of Marriott, asking him to justify to the American public “your industry’s habit of taking billions of dollars from taxpayers to subsidize the construction and operation of your hotels.”
Marriott, Hilton and Hyatt, as part of the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), have already laid plans to deal with the “threat” represented by Airbnb, which it named in an internal document that was leaked earlier this year to The New York Times.
It’s not likely that Marriott will respond to Airbnb’s letter, since earlier letters from Airbnb also haven’t been responded to, either. But it’s clear that the hotel industry is now seeing Airbnb as more of threat now than ever before.
The letter in question was sent on Monday by Airbnb’s head of public policy Josh Meltzer. CNBC has posted a copy of the letter on Scribd, as embedded below:
Airbnb Letter by CNBC.com on Scribd
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