Approaching the increasingly complex sharing economy in a new way, AccorHotels has agreed to purchase Onefinestay, a home-sharing service, for $168 million. The company expects to invest another $72 million to extend the reaches of the service internationally. The purchase can be seen as a new tactic to compete against the likes of Airbnb—instead of adding more hotel rooms that cannot rival Airbnb, Onefinestay rentals will more directly compete with Airbnb for customers—but will also help grow Accor’s luxury business. Onefinestay offers apartments in trendy areas like London’s Shoreditch district, and the acquisition comes on the heels of the company’s $2.9 billion purchase of the Fairmont, Swissotel, and Raffles chains in December. To read more, click here.
