Craigslist does not collect payment to facilitate the stay.
They do not offer insurance and serve as mediator during disputes.
They do not operate concierge services.
They operate significantly less like a hotel than airbnb.
They do not offer insurance and serve as mediator during disputes.
They do not operate concierge services.
They operate significantly less like a hotel than airbnb.
1) A place where you pay someone to stay overnight.
2) A website that helps people find and pay for #1.
Personally, as a customer, I would like to see them take care of collecting any necessary taxes, so that I can use the service in good conscience. If putting my place up on Airbnb requires me to collect extra cash and figure out how to get it to the city, there is no way I'm doing that.
The VERY slippery slope this issue leads to is that NYC and San Fran can sink their claws into the hotel taxes, then won't these entities paying the hotel tax suddenly need to be compliant with hotel regulations, for example, fire exits, accessibility, etc as well as commercial insurance requirements, commercial business licensing, etc.
This is a very dangerous road down which we travel. The interesting thing is to look behind this fight. I'm pretty certain that there's a Marriott, Holiday Inn or some other hotel conglomerate "donating" money to certain politicians to put pressure on AirBnb. Much like the large taxi companies put pressure on city governments over Uber.
Put down the organic soy latte and turn down the Vampire Weekend and stop voting for these jackasses! Call their office and tell them -- if you want to apply 20th century paradigms to 21st century innovations, then you aren't qualified to be in office and I'm not voting for you. (Or something to that effect.)
Edit: Followup. Also, in a recent WSJ article within the past 2 weeks, they discussed Orbitz's (possibly Expedia's) use of tax collection arbitrage to earn extra profits. Basically, Orbitz collects tax on the retail price charged to a customer for booking a website on their hotel room...but Orbitz only pays the hotel the wholesale price, on which the tax is calculated. Orbitz remits the wholesale-based amount to the hotel, which remits the amount to the state. For example: if a room is booked for $120 in a 10% hotel-tax jurisdiction directly through the hotel, the tax would be $12. However, if it is booked through Orbitz for $100,the hotel tax due is the amount Orbitz pays the hotel to book the room, which is usually a reduced/wholesale price of say, $80, resulting in an $8 tax. Orbitz doesn't reduce the tax collected from the customer--it still charges $10, but it keeps $2. Needless to say, this is actually a large source of profits for Orbitz, and for tax reasons actually lets them manage profits by booking a liability for the taxes on the theory they could eventually be liable for remitting the entire $10.
Maybe that was specific to my state, but I would be highly surprised.
I'll have to dig up that WSJ article. It sounds interesting.