by Jimmy Thomson originally published in the Australian Financial Review
Has Airbnb had a sea change? Has the ubiquitous holiday rental platform, confronted by complaints about homelessness, rising rents and plummeting availability, been forced to change tack?
You may have noticed an increase in glossy TV ads showing nice people moving in with even nicer people, usually somewhere exotic. Then the Airbnb logo appears, launching its “Rooms” concept.
Make that “re-launching”. This is nothing new, as writer Lee Tulloch pointed out in a recent article in The Sydney Morning Herald. In fact, renting a room in your house or apartment to a traveller was the original concept for Airbnb, rather than renting an empty home to strangers that the “host” need never meet.
So why the return to basics now? Airbnb founder Brian Chesky says he regrets the direction Airbnb took en route to building his $US80 billion global business.
Or is it that Airbnb has simply maxed out its whole-home potential and expects greater growth in its original, genuine sharing model, currently only a tiny part of its business?
The initial global Airbnb expansion had whole homes listed as short-term holiday lets (STHLs). This was often in defiance of planning laws, but local authorities around the world lacked the resources to police their own regulations in the face of an unforeseen tsunami of illicit STHLs.
In tourism-dependent Australia, the state governments’ response was to neuter planning regulations in policies that could only be described as “come on down”.
Now, amid affordability and homelessness crises, awkward questions are being asked, and some answers are not to Airbnb’s liking.
Read the complete article by Jimmy at https://www.afr.com/wealth/personal-finance/airbnb-goes-back-to-basics-as-local-resistance-grows-20230627-p5djt0
Editor's Note:
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