A Lone Data Whiz Is Fighting Airbnb – And Winning
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Call me skeptical but I find it hard to believe that the guy behind "Inside Airbnb" is without outside help from entrenched interests opposing Airbnb. His website is obviously well made and his data is accurate but the cynic in me believes that the hotel lobby is helping him or funding him one way or another.
The lobby is funding political candidates in New York State from both political parties and they're creating ridiculous anti-airbnb ad spots like "Save the Moguls". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yHRy7Hn2qg
The hospitality industry has long held a stronghold in NYC due to short supply and strong demand growth. Now, hotels are popping up everywhere, especially in neighborhoods where Airbnb dominates, such as Brooklyn. The number of hotel rooms in NYC was 70k in 2010 and has now risen to 100-110k. 85% of which are in Manhattan. During the 9-10 month long peak season, hotel rooms go for $300-400/night. Airbnb rooms are around half the price of a hotel room.
Another group widely cited as anti-Airbnb are the "fair housing" activists. Their complaint is that Airbnb is driving rents up and pushing residents out of the city. The reality is that if Airbnb is affecting the rental market, the net effect is no more than $30-40 per month (rough calc: assuming 10k apartments are taken off the market in NYC as per "Inside Airbnb", with an non-stabilized rental supply of 900k units and avg rent 3k/unit). The housing activists are doing next to nothing about that fact that virtually all new residential real estate in Manhattan and Brooklyn is aimed at the luxury market. A substantial portion of said market is being bought up by foreign nationals looking to park their money. "Fair housing" activists sounds like a false flag.
Paris & NYC are Airbnb's two biggest markets. Airbnb is fighting trench warfare- the good news is that in many ways, they've already won the hearts and wallets of their guests and hosts. The boutique hospitality market is already looking for ways to mimic the feel of Airbnb rooms and attempting to emulate "belonging" for travelers who are sick of generic looking hotel rooms.
The reality of course is somewhere in between the two points of view. In my opinion, the lower price point Airbnb hosts provide tourists is expanding demand to other economic levels and freeing up tourists' spending capital for local businesses while in-country.
At the end of the day, even though the battle is not over, this is certainly a win for the tech industry. Showing the world that technology can solve problems that previously required strong regulations. More "sharing economy" companies will continue chipping away at stagnant industries for generations to come.
The boutique hospitality market has been offering cozy, friendly, distinctive places for people to stay since long before AirBnB was founded. And besides, despite what the company's marketing department would have you believe, AirBnB accommodations are mostly generic apartments stocked with Ikea furniture. Sometimes they're creepily full of someone else's personal stuff. I've never known anyone who rented an AirBnB in order to get a sense of "belonging" in a new place.
From what I've seen, people stay at AirBnBs for two reasons: price and location. You can often get a roof over your head - or a bigger roof under which more people can sleep - for less money than at a hotel. Also, you often can find AirBnBs in neighborhoods without many hotels - perhaps because hotels have been banned in those areas.
Whatever effect AirBnB has had on housing markets in various cities - and I suspect it's frequently exaggerated - I understand why people want to restrict them. A steady stream of short-term guests staying in the apartment down the hall can be a huge nuisance. You feel less safe in your own building with so many complete strangers wandering through. Maybe you get woken up by partying tourists playing loud music late at night. And maybe those tourists make a mess in your building, which they see as more or less interchangeable with a hotel. More than anything else though living next door to an AirBnB can be annoying because it's just not something you signed up for when you moved in. You thought all your neighbors would be part of the community, but then all of a sudden the apartment down the hall turned into a commercial establishment.
Don't get me wrong. AirBnBs can be great. The company offers a totally worthwhile service. And the hotel lobby has done some pretty darn sleazy things to try to fight off AirBnB.
It's just that in stark contrast to, say, the taxi regulations that Lyft and Uber have been pushing against a lot of the regulations around renting rooms that AirBnB has run up against are perfectly understandable.
> More "sharing economy" companies will...
I realize you're using scare quotes, but still, I gotta say, the phrase "sharing economy" is so absurdly misleading. Seeing it is like fingernails on a chalkboard for me. Companies like AirBnB, and Lyft and Uber, have nothing to do with sharing. They're marketplaces for small-scale commercial transactions. I think a much better way to describe this overall phenomenon is the "access economy" [0] which describes the effect of all these informal marketplaces from the consumer's perspective.
[0] - https://alexdanco.com/2015/02/02/the-rise-of-the-access-econ...