The Sharing Economy Enters the Business of Business Travel With alternatives like Airbnb, should business travelers still check into hotels?

On business in Miami, Andy Abramson, founder of Del Mar, Calif.-based marketing communications agency Comunicano, stayed in a high-rise with a spa, pool and a choice of restaurants nearby. The room came with fluffy towels, smart TVs and Wi-Fi. A similar resort would have cost him $400 per night or more, but Abramson found this rental apartment using Airbnb. It cost $180 per night.

"To me, for a few nights, and to save close to $500 in costs and get more, it's a no-brainer," says Abramson, who travels some 200 days per year. For road warriors like him, business lodging is no longer the uniform shuffle from one bland corporate hotel to another. The rise of short-term-stay options, enabled by the reservation platform Airbnb, has challenged that norm.

To better target this lucrative market—estimated by the Global Business Travel Association at $292.3 billion in 2014, up 6.8 percent over 2013—Airbnb launched a business-travel portal on its site last summer, excluding the offbeat options of the consumer site in favor of full houses and apartments. The company says only about 10 percent of its users are traveling for work, but that share could grow with awareness on the part of cost-conscious businesspeople.