AirBnB for individuals not for companies

Stephan2
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

AirBnB for individuals not for companies

AirBnB started as a sharing service between individuals. Guests are looking for a new and personal experience in someones home. Host wants the best experience for people in their homes. 

Now I see more and more commercial companies using AirBnB to rent homes. Some of these companies are renting up to 100 different homes. This is no sharing anymore,what's the difference with an ordinary hotel. These homes are only used for renting the whole year and making as much profit as possible. This made cities like Berlin, Barcelona and Paris to change the rules and make it almost impossible to use AirBnB as an individual. 

 

So I would like to ask AirBnB to go back where it all started. Share your own home, or a room in your own home.  And make it impossible for commercial companies with large amounts of apartments to profit from AirBnB. They are damaging the good intentions of a lot of hosts. 


 


Reponse from Airbnb

 

We really appreciate the fact that the Airbnb host community cares about the mission and future of Airbnb. Last year, hosts asked the founders a similar question during Q&A at Open. You can watch the full video in the Community Center.

 

Our mission is to create a world where everyone belongs. For that to happen, we will always work with our community of hosts to create a more inclusive product that helps people find a place to feel connected, respected, and a part of a community again.

 

This is the main reason why our product is constantly expanding. At the beginning, Airbnb was only a platform for air mattresses. And it slowly transitioned to rooms and later to entire homes. Now, we’re growing from homes to global experiences that change the way people travel.

 

That doesn’t mean that we care any less about our individual hosts. On the contrary, we are constantly thinking about new ways to empower our hosts. Last year, we launched co-hosting and experience hosting to provide product solutions that expand our hosts’ economic opportunities beyond their private homes.

 

Empowering our hosts allows our community to support travelers all over the world despite the wide variety of hosting patterns and different regulations that govern home sharing in regions throughout the world. We remain committed to working with housing-constrained cities to ensure our platform is not impacting housing supply.


Additionally, we’ll continue to work closely with our hosts in such efforts like Host Voice to ensure that they feel that they have a space to establish an open dialogue and that they see us as partners in defining the future of home sharing.

 

55 Replies 55
Sharon67
Level 3
Seattle, WA

Yes to this idea!  Airbnb's current marketing campaign--showing guests being welcomed into people's homes--is inconsistent with the kind of commercial hosting Stephan and others in this thread refer to.  In my city, regulators are distinguishing between different kinds of hosts, offering more favorable conditions to those welcoming people into their own home as opposed to more restrictive conditions on those who own mulitple properties.  Why?  Because these types of hosts are different! And the guest experience is too 🙂

Stephan2
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

@Sharon67 Can you tell more about this? How does that work and can you see that at AirBnB?

 

"In my city, regulators are distinguishing between different kinds of hosts, offering more favorable conditions to those welcoming people into their own home as opposed to more restrictive conditions on those who own mulitple properties."

Mira11
Level 2
Hilton Head Island, SC

Actually, now that I think about it. Airbnb is misrepresenting the product if folks think they are renting from owners only to find out it is a rental company or timeshare they are really dealing with. No warm fuzzies ther!

Sharon67
Level 3
Seattle, WA

@Stephan2  You can't see it on Airbnb but here is a link to the Seattle City Council's proposal:  http://www.seattle.gov/council/issues/regulating-short-term-rentals

"Under the proposed rules, any property may be provided as a short-term rental for up to 90 nights in a 12 month period. Only properties that are the primary residence of the short-term rental operator will be allowed to rent past the 90 night threshold. The primary residency requirement will curtail the growing year-round commercial operation of these platforms."

So they recognize that these are different types of hosts and they want to regulate them differently...

Mira11
Level 2
Hilton Head Island, SC

Awesome! thanks for sharing this!!!!

Amy38
Level 10
Nashville, TN

Not to be spammy, but I urge you all to follow the link below and join me in a demand for the return of our property descriptions.....help get it moved to consideration.

 

https://community.airbnb.com/t5/Host-Voice/We-want-our-home-descriptions-back/idc-p/263422#M5614

 

Thank you and by the way I completely agree with all the arguments above.  I am dealing with it by trying to get my city to only allow owner on site short term rentals.

Punam0
Level 10
Auckland, New Zealand

@Stephan2

Hi all, this is now 'Under consideration'.  But what does that actually mean now?

Leslie7
Level 10
Port Angeles, WA

Agreed! I understand that the bottom line is the main driver, and corporatization probably makes Airbnb more customers, but separate out the actual homestays so that people who are looking for that experience can still get it. That way the company can have multiple offerings for all host and customer types.

Akos0
Level 1
Budapest, Hungary

I manage 30 apartments currently (I own a company who manages the apartments for investors and also some of the apartments owned by me), and i am fanatic on the well-being of my Guests. I am maximalist and would like to give the personal care of each and every Guest of mine. I wake up and i go to bed with the messages of my Guests . I just wanted to share my opinion because i wanted to grab the attention to the fact that a lot of commercial-sytle hosts are as conscious and enthusiastic as the individual hosts. Please do not think in black and white but in shades. Sorry for my English, my native is Hungarian, I am from Budapest.

Daniel224
Level 1
London, United Kingdom

Totally agree.  There is a company close by to me that abuse the platform.  They have multiple listings (50+) and constantly show each one as available even if they aren't.  When people book they then place them in a listing that's available.  So use airbnb only to lure potential guests. Needles to say the service they offer is not in line with Airbnb's original values. Stop

Airbnb
Official Account

We really appreciate the fact that the Airbnb host community cares about the mission and future of Airbnb. Last year, hosts asked the founders a similar question during Q&A at Open. You can watch the full video in the Community Center.

 

Our mission is to create a world where everyone belongs. For that to happen, we will always work with our community of hosts to create a more inclusive product that helps people find a place to feel connected, respected, and a part of a community again.

 

This is the main reason why our product is constantly expanding. At the beginning, Airbnb was only a platform for air mattresses. And it slowly transitioned to rooms and later to entire homes. Now, we’re growing from homes to global experiences that change the way people travel.

 

That doesn’t mean that we care any less about our individual hosts. On the contrary, we are constantly thinking about new ways to empower our hosts. Last year, we launched co-hosting and experience hosting to provide product solutions that expand our hosts’ economic opportunities beyond their private homes.

 

Empowering our hosts allows our community to support travelers all over the world despite the wide variety of hosting patterns and different regulations that govern home sharing in regions throughout the world. We remain committed to working with housing-constrained cities to ensure our platform is not impacting housing supply.


Additionally, we’ll continue to work closely with our hosts in such efforts like Host Voice to ensure that they feel that they have a space to establish an open dialogue and that they see us as partners in defining the future of home sharing.

Stephan2
Level 10
Amsterdam, Netherlands

blablabla, so it's all about the money, the investors that want to get as much money as possible. I am very dissapointed. Hopefully there will come a real social company for the real BnB feeling. 

Mercedes107
Level 1
Hopatcong, NJ

We just wrote AirBnB a long commentary about this issue.  We are also in favor of splitting it into 2 divisions, the "oldschool" style of hosting, and the "lockbox," hotel-type listings.  We are getting more and more weird and demanding requests from newbies that we, as oldschool hosts, are not comfortable hosting.

Marsha11
Level 2
Eugene, OR

I agree with all that has been said above.  I have been hosting for 6 years and I have witnessed the change.  The most recent situation that I find alarming is that insurance companies are no longer covering airbnbs with private rooms and shared spaces. If you check the airbnb chat room on insurance you will see countless stories of people who find themselves without a primary insurance carrier and the airbnb host insurance is not adequate. In some cases, people who asked questions about airbnb coverage were then cancelled by their primary carriers.  In this scenario, the founders of airbnb would be out of luck! Will Airbnb come to the rescue of us small time folks who value both hosting and staying with people in a shared setting?  Will they beef up their host protection so that we are adequately covered? Will they lobby insurance companies to close the gap?  Surely they have plenty of money to do these things, but only if they value us enough to make sure we can exist under the Airbnb brand. I loved the branding that came out about "making connections" a few years ago ... well not so much any more, if all of us private room hosters are forced to quit because we can not find adequate insurance.  

Amy38
Level 10
Nashville, TN

For insurance, ask your agent about an additional umbrella policy....this will cover you.  I pay about $300/yr for $1,000,000 proberty and liability coverage.

This is in addition to my primary insurance.