How to structure this case?

Hi,

Before I frame, just want to point out that this case is a PERFECT example of why it's so important to be well-read. If you've been following the news, you'll know that the Marriott has recently announced it's response to Airbnb:

https://www.cntraveler.com/story/marriott-will-now-rent-out-homes-and-apartments

However, while it's good to note and leverage, don't let it limit your thinking.

There's a few ways to frame this question, and it ultimately comes down to preference, but the main focus (which is worth clarifying to be sure of the objective) is: Is AirBnB a threat, and if so, how do I stop it from poaching my existing customers?

Option 1 - Benchmarking, competitor comparison

1) AirBnB

• What is their value-offering?
• What is their demographic of customers (young, old, rich poor, leisure, business) - note, we have hypotheses here from both our knowledge and the case i.e. they're grabbing leisure travellers who have higher price elasticity
• What is the demographic trend (not just current state but growth areas)
• How does the value-offering match the customers?
• What are they doing well/right?

2) Our company

• What is our value-offering
• What is our demographic
• What is the demographic trend (not just current state but growth areas)
• How does our value-offering match our customers
• What are we doing well?
• What are we doing wrong?
• Speficially, what customers are leaving and do we know why? (What is value mismatch)

For this, I'd try and see if we have any exit surveys, data from comparison and review sites, etc.

The objective is to look at the value offering mismatch and see where we can match AirBnB's (either through enhancing existing services or creating new ones. We also need to consider cost).

Option 2 - Internal review. Focus: Rate of change of demographics

1) Customers leaving

• What demographics are leaving? Are they leaving quickly and/or at an accelerating rate or is it manageable? (Case says some leisure travelers...is some acceptable?)
• Do we know why they're leaving?
• Are they are large part of our profit? If so, we need to fix this. If not, maybe we can afford to focus efforts elsewhere.
• Can we make adjustments to our offering to stem/reverse this trend? If so, are these adjustments worth the cost?

2) Customers steady/growing

• What demographics are steady/growing?
• Do we know why?
• Are they a large part of our profit?
• Can we accelarate this growth? Is it worth the cost?

3) No customers

• Have we overlooked a major segment?
• Can we take customers from AirBnB that we never had?
• Is this worth it? Would there be larger margins? Can we counter-act the loss of other demographics?

Ultimately, we want to know 1) Are we losing an important part of our business (i.e. a large % of customers AND/OR a high margin base)?

a) If yes, can we stop/mitigate this? What can we offer that counteracts AirBnB's offering? Can we also counteract this with growth elsewhere?

b) If no, perhaps minimal action required - let's focus efforts on growing where we operate best.

Hope this helps!