AirBnB for individuals not for companies

[Stephan2]

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. 

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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.

[Marsha11]

Thanks for your comment.  Does your coverage specifically cover private rooms and shared spaces ... that seems to be where things are breakind down .

[Amy38]

@Marsha11. I would thinks so...it is a commercial insurance to cover events related to events caused by the commercial enterprise.

My insurance covers my house, a neighboring rental and my car. Just ask about an Umbrella policy.

[Rebecca181]

Translation: "We thus far as of February 2018 have not created any sort of filter whereby a prospective guest can choose between a hotel-like experience and a home host / personal / community experience. We also do not care that hosts who were listed in the top page of search rankings because of their superb hosting skills are now buried on the 8th or 9th page because property managers are listing hundreds of properties and receiving what appears to be preferential treatment via 16 changes to policy that entice them to list on the platform."

Unless home host / property managed filters are indeed being planned, then let's acknowledge what has happened in an honest fashion: Airbnb is going the way of Expedia and is no longer that concerned with retaining home hosts.

I'm a newer host and I'm doing well on the platform thus far, but I feel very sad about comments and posts here who say their businesses are destroyed because of Airbnb catering to property managers and allowing hotels to list with them now.

So, are the filters that I read about as being planned here in Host Voice actually coming? Or are us traditional, community-minded hosts seen as a liability to management and shareholders as Airbnb moves toward an IPO?

[Adam-and-Carol0]

This is likely to get worse and worse, especially now that Airbnb is partnering with companies who are building purpose-built airbnb hotels/condo buildings, meaning you'll soon have to compete with Airbnb's stock of units directly. This is what's happening in our area of Florida anyway. They claim hosts will be able to lease these purpose built units to host on airbnb, but they don't make any mention of how many they'll run themselves. Everything is slowly moving away from the original model airbnb was known for and becoming more and more commercialized. It's really sad to see.

[Marsha11]

I agree! I've hosted for 5 years now and suddenly all forces seem to be against my continuing to airbnb rooms as "shared space" and/or my whole house.  The current challenge is changes within the insurance industry which seem to have united as of January 2018 to no longer cover "shared space" with traditional homeowner's policies (in my case State Farm). They are also restricting rental of my whole house to only 2 persons at at time (3 bedroom house) and there some unclear restrictions regarding "no continuous postings" on the Airbnb site. On the Airbnb chat site, I found that people all over the country were experiencing similar problems with all of the big insurance carriers. So beware and check your policies regarding liability insurance.  Of course State Farm will offer me their hotel motel coverage for an outrageous price. The Airbnb $1,000,000 policy has nothing to do with personal liability, and when I contacted them asbout this issue more than once, I have gotten NO response. Increased insurance costs are not an issue for the "Big Players" which are increasingly the norm within Airbnb ... and increasingly encouraged and supported by Airbnb.

[Amy38]

@Marsha11  Try your state Farm Bureau agency...I am paying about $140/year extra on my homeowners...but my guest house is separate. Different companies have widely ranges prices on insurance.  I started renting with a $270 Umbrella policy which covered the Abnb part.  My isurance company would not insure it but my agent found the extra policy for me. 

[Rebecca181]

@Amy38 I found out that Farm Bureau is only available in Tennessee...

[Amy38]

@Rebecca0I believe there is a Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance company in a number of states. But if not there is Personal Umbrella which is located in Emeryville,CA and which I used before Farm Bureau.

[Marsha11]

Thanks Amy...why did you switch to Personal Umbrella?

[Amy38]

I was with Personal Umbrella with my old agent but switch to Farm Bureau because I was changing all my insurance. My main insurer just went too high...they tried to charge me an extra1000/year for simply inquiring if some damage was covered.

[Michele4]

I would encourage a strict distinction between private and commercial hosts. Ideally with some sort of "airbnb plus" or at least a clearly visible hint like a badge or different color.