Ryanair to challenge Airbnb with private room rentals

Ryanair will launch the new Ryanair Rooms service in October, offering everything from 5-star hotel rooms to hostels and spare rooms in private homes. It will add at least two partners to Booking.com, currently its exclusive accommodation partner. "We see this as a natural progression towards Ryanair.com becoming the Amazon of air travel," chief marketing officer Kenny Jacobs said. Ryanair is Europe's largest airline by passenger numbers, flying 106 million journeys last year, and management says it wants to leverage this base to compete with fast-growing web firms. CE Michael O'Leary said Ryanair would charge commissions to accommodation suppliers of under 10% compared to up to 20% charged by some online aggregators. Ryanair is entering a fragmented holiday lettings market, with the four largest companies - Airbnb, Homeaway, Tripadvisor and booking.com - controlling a market share of less than 25% between them, according to a company called Tripping.com, a search engine for holiday villas and short-term lets.<br/>