Hotel CEO Openly Celebrates Higher Prices After Anti-Airbnb Law Passes (washingtonpost.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Washington Post: A hotel executive said a recently-passed New York law cracking down on Airbnb hosts will enable the company to raise prices for New York City hotel rooms, according to the transcript of the executive's words on a call with shareholders last week. The law, signed by New York's Governor Andrew Cuomo on Friday, slaps anyone who lists their apartment on a short-term rental site with a fine up to $7,500. It "should be a big boost in the arm for the business," Mike Barnello, chief executive of the hotel chain LaSalle Hotel Properties, said of the law last Thursday, "certainly in terms of the pricing." Barnello's comment adds fuel the argument, made repeatedly by Airbnb and its proponents, that a law that was passed in the name of affordable housing also allows established hotels to raises prices for consumers. It was included in a memo written by Airbnb's head of global policy, Chris Lehane, to the Internet Association, a tech trade group, reviewed by the Washington Post. LaSalle, a Bethesda, MD-based chain, owns hotels around the country, including New York City. The memo is the latest volley in a bitter fight that has pit the hotel industry, unions, and affordable housing advocates against Airbnb and its supporters. At the heart of the fight is a debate over the societal value of the Airbnb platform and its role in the economy of cities throughout the world. The question is whether Airbnb has been a net benefit, by enabling middle class city-dwellers to make extra money by renting out their homes, or whether it has had the unintended consequence of exacerbating affordable housing crises in expensive cities such as New York and Los Angeles.

Comments

Re:except it wasn't people renting out their rooms

[mi]

Yet again, the old truth manifests itself. When you meddle with the free market, you only make things worse... The cental planning of command-and-control economies — such as that of New York City — is not only less fair, but also less efficient, than free market capitalism.

I'm confused...

[kenh]

It is newsworthy/noteworthy that reduced competition leads to higher prices?

From what I understand, cities like NYC have very carefully-crafted laws regarding hotels designed to protect the rights and safety of both the hotelier and the guest. AirBnB wants to be exempt from all those regulations and hospitality taxes because, well, it allows them to offer a lower-cost option without any significant investment. In effect, AirBnB wants to be a hotelier that owns no hotel rooms, pays no hospitality taxes, and has no legal responsibility for anything that happens in a space they rented.

That AirBnB can't pick and choose the tax, safety, and other regulations that apply to their 'service' isn't discriminatory against AirBnB, it is treating everyone equally.

So why don't these owners that want to do this....

[mark-t]

... just get a bed and breakfast license, and then be exempt anyways? Home-based business licenses aren't *THAT* expensive, after all.

While it means you'd have to pay tax on the money you make from rentals... that's what you were supposed to be doing all along, right?