Your usual airbnb property is not "an unsafe hotel." My flat is presently being let on airbnb and isn't suddenly unsafe because someone else is in it rather than me.
My experience is the opposite - 90% of the places I've stayed have clearly been people's homes or cottages. At least in the US. In Europe it was different but for me that's a much smaller sample size.
I have the same experience as yours. Of the 7-8 AirBNBs I have stayed at, only 1 felt like a hotel (it was in Hong Kong, and the cheapest place I could find.)
On the other hand, some of my best travel experiences have been eating meals with hosts, staying up talking about life and drinking by a bonfire with hosts, and otherwise getting the authentic AirBNB experience. Of course I wouldn't say that the hotel-type experience isn't out there (it may even be cheaper than hotels) but that's not why I do AirBNB. It would be a shame (both for hosts and guests) to have fewer opportunities like this available.
Are you looking for a kind of place that keeps you away from the illegal hotels? Is there a price point thing, or neighborhoods you tend to stay in? I have the same experience as you do, but I'm avoiding the kinds of searches that would ever put me in an illegal hotel.
I'm sure I am, because I prefer staying in actual flats and cottages, which is why I use Airbnb in the first place (that and price). On the other hand I don't see many listings that don't fit that description, and I always select the 'entire home/apt' filter, which presumably is where hotel-like operations would show up. It must vary a lot by local market.
When I read stories like these and think about my condo-owning NYC friends complaints about Abnb, I usually start wondering if the kinds of searches I'm giving Abnb are just not representative of the majority of users, and so I'm not really noticing the negative externalities they're creating.
> My flat is presently being let on airbnb and isn't suddenly unsafe because someone else is in it rather than me.
You might not have changed the smoke detector batteries in a decade, though. Fine if you want to risk your own life that way, but we've decided as a society that renting a hotel room means extra safety requirements and checks to protect the guests.
>Fine if you want to risk your own life that way, but we've decided as a society that renting a hotel room means extra safety requirements and checks to protect the guests.
Sorry, how did "we as a society" decide that? Governments are deciding the things you're talking about. What we as a society can do, is post and read reviews on hotels and Airbnb rentals, and we certainly do this.
>You are engaged in the political process aside from once-every-few-years voting, right?
I certainly have and do, and it is a pretty frustrating thing with which to deal. Thank goodness society is not bound by what government can do.
>That's how "we as a society" decided it.
I think that's a pretty low standard for judging society's opinion on anything. You get a lot more feedback on what society thinks by examining the day to day transactions and exchanges we're all doing.
> Governments are deciding the things you're talking about.
Governments are made up of our elected representatives and those our elected representatives appoint/hire. If we're unhappy with those decisions, we vote for someone else and tell them to change them. See Trump and the EPA for a current-events sample of this in action - the Right feels things are too regulated, they won the election, and now we're getting a bunch of regulations removed (to our likely detriment, IMO).
>Governments are made up of our elected representatives and those our elected representatives appoint/hire. If we're unhappy with those decisions, we vote for someone else and tell them to change them. See Trump and the EPA for a current-events sample of this in action - the Right feels things are too regulated, they won the election, and now we're getting a bunch of regulations removed (to our likely detriment, IMO).
This paints a rosier picture about the possibilities of change in such systems than I think are warranted, though I know some might argue that the sclerosis of politics is a feature as much as it is a drawback. That said, we make decisions, sometimes daily, regarding things we want in life. It may be as simple as which kinds of coffee to drink, or which laptop to buy, and those choices result in areas of society that can and do change with some speed.
Those daily decisions are usually far removed from their externalities. Yes, people will choose the $5 shirt over the $10, but it's hardly a sign that people in our society endorse the child slave labor that's happening behind the scenes. Government regulation happens a lot when individual small decisions eventually lead to things society as a whole doesn't like.
>Those daily decisions are usually far removed from their externalities. Yes, people will choose the $5 shirt over the $10, but it's hardly a sign that people in our society endorse the child slave labor that's happening behind the scenes. Government regulation happens a lot when individual small decisions eventually lead to things society as a whole doesn't like.
If people knowingly help that child labour scene to flourish, by what metric do we decide that "society" doesn't, in fact, like it, despite its actions? Election results? Pulling a lever or filling in a ballot every X years, by comparison, doesn't involve anything remotely close to that level of engagement and activity. Even writing the occasional letter to a legislator is a paltry amount of effort, by comparison.
I'm not intending to be glib here, I'm quite familiar with the arguments that equate society with representative government. I'm just interested in how representative such systems really are of said socieity.
Yes, there are in fact less (or no) disability access requirements for a private residence. The typical home, if used as a hotel, would not be in compliance with access requirements imposed on hotels. This is one way that the deck is stacked against hotels.
So your flat has been inspected by the hotel commission and your hotel permit is displayed in a prominent location in your flat and you've kept logs of all required maintenance and I can view your flat's inspection records?
Huh? Why does he have to do that? I can understand being suspicious of those who actually come and STAY in the Airbnb, but to use your line of argument against the person renting out the room makes no sense to me. What exactly does the hotel permit specify? That the toilet is clean? That the building is structurally sound?
Just wait until an AirBNB customer dies in a fire because the property didn't meet fire safety requirements. AirBNB probably wouldn't survive the fallout.
I don't know if they do. If it quacks like a duck and walks like a duck, it's probably a duck.
At the end of they day they are directly competing with hotels. In order to ensure the competition is fair, they should be subject to the same regulations.
What if I just want to rent out one room in my home on the side, not as a business? Why, then, should I be subject to the same requirements as a huge corporation with dedicated multistory buildings, many more customers, staff, and so forth?
To me, it sounds like the taxi industry pre-Uber. Lots of questionable-value regulation created by incumbents that doesn't really hurt anyone in the real world when it's mostly ignored.
It certainly depends on where you live but almost all jurisdictions have those sorts of requirements. For example, first thing I saw on Google
>Environmental health specialists inspect every hotel at least twice a year or more often as deemed necessary to ensure compliance with the Hotel, Food Service Establishment, and Public Swimming Pool Act of 1985* and the hotel rules and regulations. Current hotel permits must be displayed in a prominent location for the public to view and the inspection report must be available for public scrutiny.
Maybe this is more true of countries like India, where I'm from, where I can imagine hygiene standards being more "flexible". But here in Western Europe for example, or the US, airbnbs are almost better maintained than I'd maintain my own house. And I think there's a good reason for this: the impact of reviews. Even in India, I can't imagine a place going far looking like a cheapo dorm room, because people will definitely look at reviews.
I can understand hotels having a legitimate objection to the differential regulation that gives Airbnb hosts a cost advantage, but there are good reasons for exempting (some) hosts: generally, once you run a business at scale, there's a disconnect that leads to cutting corners with safety, which is what prompts these regulations.
If a hotel room is just one of a thousand properties (the thinking goes) then the owner might be too casual about safety issues -- hence regs to force them to care. But if it's a room in the owner's very own house, there is no such "incentive incompatibility": a fire is much more than just a financial loss for them, so -- if anything -- they're overcautious! Thus, it's reasonable to exempt the renting out of one's primary residence from these additional safety regs.
With that said, your general point still stands: many of these hosts are "superhosts" who rent 3+ properties, which does (from the perspective of regulatory concerns) look like a hotel business and which therefore does merit similar regulation.
Maybe because by and large, hotels have a hard time getting around being inspected. So there is no need for the average consumer to spend the time to do the research so they can say "yep, government regulators are doing a good job!"
As with most regulations, it drives up the cost a bit for the end user, but it's worthwhile - and when done properly, invisible to the consumer.