Another Popular Tourist Hotspot Wants To Ban Airbnb

It was only a matter of time before critical mass hit Europe’s city-centered tourism economy. Over 60% of the world’s population will reside in urban areas by 2030, according to the World Health Organization, while an estimated 1.8 billion tourists will cross country borders by the same time period.

Now, civic leaders at some popular European destinations have had enough, and are putting curbs on tourism travel.

In Florence, Italy, legislators are rolling out plans to outlaw short-term rentals, including Airbnb’s. The new ban is expected to easily pass a Sept. 13 vote and go into law by November.

“We are witnessing a progressive growth in the influx of tourists which has become even more pronounced since the pandemic,” said Florence Mayor Dario Nardella, who also cited the “very important” bill coming out of the city’s legislature.

City officials say the short-term rental ban is necessary to secure Florence’s historic neighborhoods and hopefully reduce rising rental costs.

“We are putting a simple ban in the UNESCO area to meet our responsibilities of protecting the cultural and material identity of the centro storico, and to dampen the effect of rent increases across the entire city – which are directly linked to the boom of short-term tourist rentals,” Nardella said.

“We have rolled up our sleeves because for too long we’ve been asking for regulation that never happens,” he added.

Florence is hardly alone.

In Vienna, Austria, a new city mandate bars homeowners from renting out their homes more than 90 days annually. The historic city had established some piece-meal measures to block short-term rentals in some sections Vienna, but the new rule covers the entire metro area.

In Paris, France, city officials will limit homeowners to a 120 day per-year unit rental window. Homeowners who wish to rent their properties will also have to register their property with the city. Paris regulatory agencies will also get more aggressive about tracking down homeowners who exceed the mandated rental schedule and issuing hefty fines.

Source: https://www.thestreet.com/author/brian-oconnell

Airbnb Overhauls Site Searches With Categories Of Rentals

Airbnb said Wednesday it is overhauling the way that consumers search for rental listings, adding dozens of categories including “chef’s kitchens” and “historical homes” to its current listings, which are mostly searched by location.

The company will also let people book split stays between homes and it promised new protections for renters when listings fall short of advertised promises.

Airbnb said the changes will help people find listings that they didn’t know existed before and in locations that they had not considered, taking pressure off overtourism in popular destinations.

CEO Brian Chesky called it the biggest change to the company’s site in a decade.

The changes are being rolled out this week, in time for what Airbnb predicts will be a strong summer season for rentals. Last week, the company forecast that second-quarter revenue would exceed $2 billion, above analysts’ previous expectations. Nights and experiences booked in the first quarter topped 100 million for the first time in the company’s history.

Visitors to Airbnb’s site will see listings organized by 56 categories including proximity to attractions such as a beach, to an activity like skiing or surfing, or by the style of home.

The split-stay feature will let people book two different homes in the same area on one trip or rent two different places in one category, such as two separate national parks on the same trip.

The San Francisco-based company also said all bookings will include a promise of finding a similar or better home or a refund if the host cancels a booking within 30 days of check-in or the listing falls short of promises, such as having fewer bedrooms than advertised.

Airbnb Unveils New Category Of Rentals Rated By Inspectors #Airbnb

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Airbnb is dispatching inspectors to rate thousands of the

 properties listed on its home-rental service in an effort to reassure travelers they’re 

booking nice places to stay.

The Plus program, unveiled Thursday, is aimed at winning over travelers who aren’t

 sure they can trust the current rating system drawn from the opinions posted by past

 guests. The misleading pictures drawn by Airbnb’s rating system have become a big

 enough problem to spawn a website devoted to horror stories spanning from an

 overcrowded, dirty “hippy commune ” in Pasadena, California, to a Paris vacation ruined

 in a moldy, bug-infested apartment.

“You realize over time that you do have to take more responsibility for your platform,

 you have to be hands on, you have to make judgments,” Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky said

 in an interview with The Associated Press.

The hands-on touch built into the Plus program comes 10 years after Chesky and his

 former roommate started Airbnb in a San Francisco apartment in hopes of bringing

 in more money to pay their own rent.

Airbnb’s internal surveys have found nearly three-fourths of the travelers on its service

 are willing to pay more for inspector-certified properties, allowing homeowners and 

apartment dwellers to quickly recoup a $149 fee to participate in Plus.

Human inspectors will review properties based on a 100-point checklist covering

 everything from the speed of the Wi-Fi to the comfort of the bedding. Properties that fail

 can still be part of Airbnb’s regular listings; the company will also offer advice on

 improvements to qualify.

The program will initially cover about 2,000 properties in 13 cities — Austin, Texas;

 Barcelona, Spain; Cape Town, South Africa; Chicago; Los Angeles; London;

 Melbourne, Australia; Milan; Rome; San Francisco; Shanghai, Sydney and Toronto. 

That’s a small fraction of the roughly 4.5 million properties listed on Airbnb in 81,000

 cities worldwide. By the end of the year, Chesky foresees verifying 75,000 homes in

 50 cities.

Airbnb is shaking things up at a time its growth has been slowing, a trend the company

 would like to reverse before it sells its stock in an initial public offering expected

 within the next two years. Despite its popularity, Airbnb remains unprofitable, with a

 loss of $75 million on revenue of nearly $2.6 billion last year, according to financial

 statements reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

During a presentation in San Francisco, Chesky announced other steps designed to

 make Airbnb more like a traditional hospitality company instead of an industry

 renegade that has siphoned business away from major hotels. Frequent travelers

 will quality for discounts and other perks. The company also is adding other rental

 categories, including bed-and-breakfast inns and boutique hotels.

A major hotel industry group slammed Airbnb’s expansion as a sham.

“Airbnb’s latest scheme is just further proof the company is trying to play in the

 hoteling space while evading industry regulations,” said Troy Flanagan of the 

American Hotel & Lodging Association. “If Airbnb wants to enter the hoteling

 business, then it needs to be regulated, taxed and subject to the same safety compliances.”

Airbnb’s success since its inception a decade ago has drawn fire from city officials

 upset about lost revenue from hotel taxes. It has also stirred protests from long-time

 renters of homes that are being converted into short-term places to stay instead. 

Airbnb’s critics contend the latter trend has been making it even more difficult to

 find a place to live in cities such as San Francisco, where housing is already scarce

 and expensive.

“There are things that we have done that have had negative impacts on cities and

 we need to confront that,” Chesky conceded. But he said he still believes communities

 have mostly benefited from Airbnb’s existence because it has helped people stay in

 their homes, thanks to the additional money brought in from renting some of the 

space whenever they want.

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE

Airbnb Threatens To Sue New York If Governor Signs New Law Curtailing Its Service

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  By Andrew J . Hawkins
  

‘More in sadness than in anger’

Airbnb says a bill that would outlaw advertising short-term rentals on its platform in New York is unconstitutional and is threatening to sue the state if Governor Andrew Cuomo signs it into law.

Airbnb has been fighting an uphill battle for legal status in New York, which prohibits landlords and homeowners from renting out apartments for less than 30 days at a time. The bill to prevent advertising these rentals would essentially cripple the company’s operations in New York, which is among its most lucrative markets.

In a letter to Cuomo and other state leaders, Airbnb outlines the legal action it says it would be forced take should the governor sign the bill, AB 8704-C, into law. “As this unlawful bill would impose real harm on our community, out of respect for the process and to inform your considerations, we want to formally notify the State that if it is signed into law by Governor Cuomo, Airbnb would have no choice but to immediately file suit against the State of New York and ask a court to declare the statute invalid and unenforceable as well as to award any damages and fees as appropriate,” Rob Chesnut, general counsel of Airbnb, writes in the letter.

“AIRBNB WANTS TO BE CLEAR THAT IT DOES SO MORE IN SADNESS THAN IN ANGER”

Chesnut adds, “In making such a formal notification, Airbnb wants to be clear that it does so more in sadness than in anger, as the company believes that there are clearly available lawful alternative legislative options to meet legitimate policy objectives while still protecting the right of everyday New Yorkers to share the homes they live in order to help make ends meet.”

Airbnb has been accused of exacerbating New York’s housing crisis by housing advocates, the state’s powerful hotel union, and members of the state legislature and New York City Council. Some unscrupulous landlords have been known to push out their tenants, many of them low-income, so they can turn their apartments into illegal hotels, which they advertise on Airbnb.

Last year, the New York attorney general released a report that found that from 2010 through early June of 2014, $168.3 million, or 37 percent percent of revenue generated by Airbnb hosts, came from hosts with three or more listings.

AIRBNB HAS SCRUBBED THOUSANDS OF LISTINGS OFF ITS SITE

In response, Airbnb has scrubbed thousands of listings that are known to be illegal hotels off its site. Last July, it kicked 2,233 listings — 5 percent of the total — off its New York City platform. It also released a new dataset of its listings in each of New York City’s 195Neighborhood Tabulation Areas, a geographic designation used by the city’s Department of Planning to describe the neighborhoods in a way that aligns with US Census tracts. This data proves that “96 percent of the hosts on the Airbnb platform in New York City have only one listing,” the company says.

The bill to restrict Airbnb’s advertising passed both the New York State Assembly and Senate earlier this summer, and is now headed to Cuomo’s desk for his consideration. A spokesperson for the governor says no decision on whether to sign the bill has yet been made. “This is one among more than 500 bills that was passed by the Legislature in the last weeks of the legislative session,” the spokesperson said. “It remains under review by Counsel’s Office.”