Booking.com seems like a good way to stay in hotel; however, they are also doing short term rental for apartments just like Airbnb. There's no reason why you shouldn't use Airbnb if you cannot find comparable apartments on Booking.com.
Landlords are afraid of not getting paid. Renters are afraid of getting scammed. I guess there should be a better technology to bridge the gap. Perhaps, a smart contract on Ethereum can produced? What do you guys think?
For sure. Those are very interesting implementations. Swarm.city is working on such an escrow type of service, but without middleman.