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Leaked Documents Reveal the Hotel Lobby's Aggressive Plan To Undermine Airbnb (gizmodo.com)
The New York Times has obtained a document revealing the hotel lobby's aggressive plan to undermine Airbnb's business "by pushing for bills to regulate the company at every level of government," reports Gizmodo. From the report: According to documents from the American Hotel and Lodging Association -- a trade group that includes the country's biggest hotel chains, including Marriott, Hilton, Hyatt, the Four Seasons and Starwood Hotels -- the organization is planning a multi-pronged attack at local, state, and federal levels to prevent Airbnb from spreading to new cities across the country. Part of the strategy includes "aggressively countering" Airbnb's claim that it's just helping the middle class make ends meet "with a wave of personal testimonials of consumer harm." The document essentially serves as opposition research and gives its members talking points about Airbnb's alleged racism and taxation issues. According to the document, the association will focus its efforts on Los Angeles, San Francisco, Boston, Washington, and Miami, where Airbnb has yet to establish a strong footing.
Agreed. Neither side is easy to support here. If it were up to Airbnb, landlords would stop renting, every apartment would be put on Airbnb, and both Airbnb and landlords would make a fortune. If you lived in an Airbnb place, or next to one, you're dealing with a constant stream of changing neighbors who have no incentive to be good neighbors since they're on vacation and couldn't care less who hates them by the end of their stay. On the hotel side of things, they are often either pretty expensive or affordable but sketchy and dirty as hell, sometimes doubling as a place homeless stay. There also may not be enough during peak tourist season.
On the other hand, there are reasonable regulations AirBnB should have to abide by. They're half of a publicly available commercial hotel service, and can't operate without the other half. While some of the regulations are doubtless there to protect the hotel business by setting up barriers to entry, others are not.
The AirBnB system, as a whole, needs to avoid illegal discrimination. It needs to comply with local zoning. The rented-out units need to be in safe condition, and as advertised. There may be other local requirements.
Currently, AirBnB is in the Uber situation of being able to compete by evading the normal regulations. It is listing places that are not legal to hire out as short-term accommodations. If AirBnB is able to come into conformance with reasonable regulations, that's great.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes