[Naritai]

AirBNB has their own version of a 'showrooming' problem as well - last time I went to Hawaii, I found a nice condo that I liked, then searched for that same condo online, found the owner's standalone website offering similar prices but no AirBNB fee. I booked direct.

[Eridrus]

That's a pretty serious amount of effort to go through, and I don't think is actually a meaningful problem.

Most hosts do not have an alternate presence and it should be pretty easy to contractually forbid this behaviour on the part of hosts, at which point it's a detection problem, rather than a fundamental problem.

[FireBeyond]

I think that would crater AirBnB.

Exclusivity contracts? What's my incentive as a host there? Is AirBnB going to give me more of a cut?

Is AirBnb going to make "exclusivity" actually mean something, and not give me 100s of hits in a square mile or two, so that my listing doesn't appear on page 10 of the results?

[Eridrus]

It's possible I've misread the host pool, but 80%+ of the places I've stayed at have not been professionally managed apartments, but rather people subletting a room or their entire place when traveling, and doing some quick reverse image searching shows that these places are not available on any alternative sites, for them an exclusivity arrangement doesn't even matter because they were not going to rent elsewhere.

If people sidestepping AirBnB became common, it would be a pretty easy decision for AirBnB to enforce exclusivity and just say goodbye to everyone else, because people showrooming on AirBnB is actively harmful to them vs not having that inventory.

If you're in an area with 100s of hits in a square mile, you have no real leverage here by definition.

[nora4]

I wonder if they start somehow "cracking down" on that. For now, it might not be worth it but eventually?

[DamnYuppie]

I think that would be very hard to crack down on. Hotels are listed on multiple booking sites and have their own site as well. As a property owner I would never want to be stuck with only one rental channel, if one tried to force me I would simply stop using it.

[nora4]

Hotels/hostels are not supposed to not list on AirBnB I thought. (I stayed at a very low-end hotel booked from AirBnB in, and I was very disappointed. When I book an AirBnB I hope for a real host, conversation, see how they live and what I got was a stupid hotel... but I digress.)

They can choose to delist the properties that have a separate channel, by crawling the web, or just querying google, query, etc. to find out if the listing is just a shell. Or they can look at the messages to see if the host suggests book instead on this website. (That of course doesn't prevent direct email communication through which the same outcome transpires. It just catches the most naive showroom cases.)

[Naritai]

There are lots of 'condotels' in tourist areas, which are essentially full-service condo buildings that explicitly sell on the idea that the owner can use it for their own holidays, then rent it on AirBNB/VRBO in all the other weeks of the year. These condotels almost always have their own booking site.

[ghaff]

I’ve definitely stayed at B&Bs that I booked through other means and I found out by chatting with the owner sometimes used AirBnB as well. No idea what is officially allowed. But if I were renting I’d need a real good reason to grant an exclusive.