And another one bites the dust!

[Cathie19]

A great Queen song, that sadly, has a different connotation for the northern WA town of Broome. As if things aren’t hard enough in a tourist town of a limited season.... a very long way from anywhere, the local council has cracked down on Airbnb in Broome. 

Or should I also suggest, the commercial rental stakeholders have screamed loud and long, to be the squeaky wheel.  Here’s a link to the article about the need to shut down, quickly, or be heavily fined...... I am feeling it for my AirbnbBroome colleagues. The length of notification is obscene. Does anyone know anything more?

Cheers!

Twitter link:    https://twitter.com/showpatience/status/1220612588368736257?s=21

ABCNews: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-01-24/authorites-clamp-down-on-airbnb-style-properties-in-broome/11...

[Cathie19]

If you are unsure that it is an isolated community, Broome, by car 🚗 is:

1,872 kilometres from Darwin, Northern Territory

2,231 kilometres from Perth, Western Australia

3,237.1 kms from Adelaide, South Australia

4,475.2 kms from Sydney, New South Wales

4,242.6 kms from Brisbane, Queensland

3,966.6 kms from Melbourne, Victoria

[Robin4]

@Cathie19 

Oh Cathie  what's that line from the Shawn Mullins song, Lullably ..."it's hard to get a gig in lala land"!

Broome is not a huge community, with less than 15,000 people it's a sure bet that the local rental wheelers and dealers  know someone on the shire council....a few gratuities exchange hands and next thing you know....STR's are shut down.

It would be lovely if we belonged to part of an organisation that would fight back, but the reality is, we don't. The best part of 200 hosts here, most of them just as dedicated as any of the rest of us are going to be thrown to the wall

As hosts we have to fight with the rest of the world. 

There is a certain injustice attached to being and Airbnb host!

Catch you mate!

Cheers.....Rob

[Cathie19]

Hey, @Robin4 , it’s also hard to get a GIG at this time of year in Darwin. 🎼🎹🎻 LOL 

Had a newbie request a booking then had problems with their verifications across a couple of days..... I refused to go outside the AIrbnb system, under any circumstances. Before we went to Canberra earlier this month, we did a last minute take down of a small shade sail and festive lights over the pool as well as a “humongous” shade sail that comes off the roof. Left two others still standing. This was due to the development of a tropical low around the 11th, (later known as Cyclone Claudia) just couldn’t be bothered to fight for the booking, between monsoonal lows....

Garry put the smaller shade sail back up today from over the pool, but maintenance is heavy for us currently.... such as grass needing to be mowed say every 5 days, mould growth appearing on the paths and pavers, so the high pressure water cleaner will be my upcoming buddy! But keeping the old mould spores away inside , has so far been successful. Pest controller in to do the annual sprays next week! All part of the dedicated host services... Got to love AND WE DO, the Wet Season! May I say, being a hater of heights, Garry is my hero! Taking down the larger sail between rain spells. 

[Kath9]

@Cathie19, I just saw this too! I feel for our Broome friends and hope that other councils are not about to follow suit. I did read that people with home shares may be okay but will probably have to register as bed and breakfast accommodation. We have had to do this here in Albany. I am now a registered bed and breakfast (minus the breakfast part). It just cost me $1000 to have smoke detectors put in every bedroom (including mine) connected to evacuation lighting, so I hope to god they won't ban Airbnb altogether! Bleepin tourism operators! Don't they realise that Airbnb has only increased tourism???

[Cathie19]

 Too true @Kath9, too true!

Always a positive to have the smoke detectors, but lit evacuation signs.... wow!

[Robin4]

@Kath9  @Cathie19 

We are on our own guys, I have no idea what Airbnb spent that $16.000.000 advertising budget on last year but, it sure as hell wasn't on propping up hosts!

I did this post once before but it is probably worth repeating.

In 2018 I did a straw poll with all 127 of my guests. I asked them how much money they would have spent while they stayed here with us in our Airbnb cottage. Now some were overnighters, maybe a Pizza and a couple of drinks....$50 saw them out! Others were 4-8 nights who said they spent an average of $80 per day so that averaged out at $500 for their stay. Some of them stayed for 15-21 nights and they reckoned they spent the best part of $2,000 while they were here....what with wine purchases, petrol and meals.

The average over those 127 stays came to $258.00. That means that registered Airbnb guests for the year of 2018 brought into this community from just my listing $32,766.00. Multiple that by the 370 Airbnb listings in the Adelaide hills area that comes out to $12.123.420.00.

I have a good relationship with my local council and I put these figures to them at a local council meeting which was attended by a few local traders and all of a sudden they have come to realise that the amount of revenue that Airbnb brings into these smaller communities cannot be overlooked. It definitely helps makes the wheels of progress turn. I even had the local health inspector Lillie Do offer to write my Airbnb house rules in simplified Chinese text!

We need to be proactive. We have seen years now of the company just rolling over and accepting local government rules as a 'fait accompli', it seems that they now just wish to be seen as compliant, and not prepared to get involved in any battles they don't have to.

We can't look to Airbnb for answers, we have to create our own. Airbnb are welcomed in this Hills community of ours, I have 'Airbnb welcome here' window stickers in many of the shop windows around here, and some of the traders offer small discounts to our Airbnb guests.

It's no doubt too late for Broome but I encourage all hosts to get themselves an ear in their local councils.....like the rental boys do! Why should we let them have it all their own way, we should be seen as strong and prepared to fight to keep our communities viable.....keep the dollars coming in from those verified guests! 

Cheers......Rob