Is AirBnB taking over the rental property business?

[Isaiah Nieto]

Earlier this summer, I attended a workshop at my parents' real estate office where they usually teach the basics of owning rental properties. 

However, a gentleman came in and spoke about how AirBnB is changing the real estate investing world because you can charge more money for less amount of time that the resident "lives" in the space. He mentioned that he's been doing AirBnBs for the last 12 years and he said he's never going back to traditional rental properties. He gave the advice to pick a busy city that always has something going on, look at the properties there, buy one, open it up as an AirBnB and some other practical logistics he mentioned. He said that the reason they are better than rental properties is that it is less wear-and-tear on the property, more money in short periods of time, and after awhile of having well-managed properties, you can rank up as the best in AirBnB so more clients will choose your space. 

He went over the city rules and why you shouldn't put an AirBnB in neighborhoods with HOAs and covered a ton more other issues that typically come up in the business. 

For those experienced in the rental property investing and are somewhat familiar with AirBnB, do you think that rental properties are a better investment than AirBnBs or vice versa? Is it subjective to what an individual's goals are? Have you ever considered going down that route? What do you think?