Post by High Priestess on Sept 30, 2015 16:12:13 GMT
Peter shared in JUne 2015
Airbnb Moves Into Professional Vacation Rentals
"The company is developing software that will make it easier for
property managers to link their properties to Airbnb and take some of
the legwork out of managing schedules, prices and other details that
currently have to be adjusted one property at a time.
The step will help the six year old company compete more aggressively in the vacation market and move Airbnb further from its roots of helping people rent out spare bedrooms or couches to travelers needing a place to sleep. The shift could arouse concerns among hoteliers that the startup is competing for their clients without being subject to the same regulations or paying the same taxes."
Click here on.fb.me/1IMj5xW for WSJ article (link will take you to Home Sharers FB page where you can link to article without paywall blocking)
My two cents: This is understanding for Airbnb's business point of view, but will add fuel for those who are already skeptical about its commitment to its sharing economy ethic.
Gina:
Airbnb is obviously moving on . Don't expect them to remain loyal to us little "folk" who got them where they are today.
Peter:
I hope and am confident that whatever new ventures Airbnb expands into, hosts like you and me will remain their core constituencies and concern. I thought last year's Airbnb Open was an eloquent and impressive statement of that commitment. I'm sure this year's Open in Paris will send as strong, if not stronger, a message.
Keith:
I agree with Peter here.. I think we're AirBnB's "bread and butter" and are needed for them to offer something unique and different.. the idea here, I presume, is that AirBnB wants to make things easier for the intermediary companies that are springing up to manage listings. sure, some may choose to convert (in cities where it's legal) a multi-unit building into a make-shift hotel, but I think the bulk of this market will be companies like pillow and guestly who are doing the business side of hosting for individuals who can't/don't want to manage those aspects of hosting. I've been begging for a good API for airbnb for a long time, so hopefully this is what will come out of this initiative. for me, I have certain things I do when a booking is accepted... Send a welcome email and guidebook, Add a door code to the keyless entry system, Separately notify the guest of their door code. While this is all work that takes me less than 5 minutes per booking, I still have to do it and prefer to do so in a timely fashion.. I'd be happier if I could just write something to do this automatically, then I don't have to stress over it. I also want to email the checkout date to the guy who does the room cleaning/turnover. the management services likely also want ways to automatically accept bookings or to better manage the listings themselves. When I have a change to my description, I have to update all my listings manually. Similarly, I don't use the airbnb built-in guidebook because it's inconvenient for me to go in there 4 different times to add a restaurant recommendation.. I can simply update the PDF doc I send my guests and I'm done. I also agree this adds fuel to the fire of those claiming airbnb is just a multi-billion dollar company out to make a buck.. but why can't they be a multi-billion dollar company out to make a buck by helping support individuals, small local businesses and communities?
Deena:
i think this makes it pretty clear that they aren't going to compromise on anything that protects home-sharers at the expense of commercial hosts. it will be up to us to convince the supervisors to carve out any unlimited exception for us.
PEter:
Deena, I think we (Hosts) and Airbnb need to work together to fight against the proposed restrictions. Clearly, Airbnb has its commercial interests in doing so, and Hosts have a different (but consistent) set of interests; namely, we both have a common goal of defeating these restrictions and on that basis, there is enough common ground for working together. This is not the time for division among friends.
Tom:
Frankly, I don’t know how to respond to this. Critics have been pointing out “bad actors” now Airbnb is promoting commercial operators? Peter, if Airbnb is promoting group operators of mulitple homes in San Francisco; I can’t support this on many different levels. It just doesn’t make sense. First it was about homesharing our personal homes....now it is big operators with multiple homes?
Peter:
Tom, I'm not sure that they're talking about "group operators of multiple homes in San Francisco." There are no details about this and I believe the program hasn't even been rolled out yet. It may be that it will only operate in cities where this is legal, and with property managers who legally operate short-term properties (like Embassy Suites). Let's not jump to any conclusions too soon.
Tom:
Which cities is this legal Peter?
Peter:
Tom, I don't have time to do the research, but I'd be flabbergasted if this were illegal in every city in the world. I would not be surprised if there are many cities in which there simply aren't any laws governing this, or cities that intentionally have very liberal property restrictions - cities whose economies rely on tourism or business conventions come to mind: Shenzhen, Shanghai, Bangkok, Aspen CO, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica etc etc.
Keith
Keith4 months ago
If I recall..at the planning commission hearing the city planner said that the consensus at the convention from which he just returned roughly 1/3 of cities represented legalized str with no restrictions. 1/3 made it illegal and 1/3 legalized with restrictions similar to what sf did.
Deena:
I'm all for working together. but so far it hasn't seemed that airbnb is interested in compromising on the hosted vs. unhosted issue. perhaps they're just holding back to not negotiate issue by issue. but i still think we need to advocate and write letters ourselves and not only depend on their lobbyists or PR people. i know you've been working with airbnb folks a lot longer than i have, Peter, but it is possible that their interests are not totally aligned with live-in hosts like many of us are.
Keith:
While we have a common goal, their interests are not necessarily the same as our interests and so we shouldn't rely on their PR people and lobbyists entirely, but instead leverage them to do the heavy lifting where they will and then do what we must to get the rest of our message heard. AirBnB financially benefits from the "bad actors" but it's not in their interests if those bad actors cause legislation to become super restrictive. It's in AirBnB's best interest to have unrestricted STR's in every city in the world. but that's not going to happen, so they have to navigate waters. it doesn't mean you have to get on their boat.
Airbnb Moves Into Professional Vacation Rentals
"The company is developing software that will make it easier for
property managers to link their properties to Airbnb and take some of
the legwork out of managing schedules, prices and other details that
currently have to be adjusted one property at a time.
The step will help the six year old company compete more aggressively in the vacation market and move Airbnb further from its roots of helping people rent out spare bedrooms or couches to travelers needing a place to sleep. The shift could arouse concerns among hoteliers that the startup is competing for their clients without being subject to the same regulations or paying the same taxes."
Click here on.fb.me/1IMj5xW for WSJ article (link will take you to Home Sharers FB page where you can link to article without paywall blocking)
My two cents: This is understanding for Airbnb's business point of view, but will add fuel for those who are already skeptical about its commitment to its sharing economy ethic.
Gina:
Airbnb is obviously moving on . Don't expect them to remain loyal to us little "folk" who got them where they are today.
Peter:
I hope and am confident that whatever new ventures Airbnb expands into, hosts like you and me will remain their core constituencies and concern. I thought last year's Airbnb Open was an eloquent and impressive statement of that commitment. I'm sure this year's Open in Paris will send as strong, if not stronger, a message.
Keith:
I agree with Peter here.. I think we're AirBnB's "bread and butter" and are needed for them to offer something unique and different.. the idea here, I presume, is that AirBnB wants to make things easier for the intermediary companies that are springing up to manage listings. sure, some may choose to convert (in cities where it's legal) a multi-unit building into a make-shift hotel, but I think the bulk of this market will be companies like pillow and guestly who are doing the business side of hosting for individuals who can't/don't want to manage those aspects of hosting. I've been begging for a good API for airbnb for a long time, so hopefully this is what will come out of this initiative. for me, I have certain things I do when a booking is accepted... Send a welcome email and guidebook, Add a door code to the keyless entry system, Separately notify the guest of their door code. While this is all work that takes me less than 5 minutes per booking, I still have to do it and prefer to do so in a timely fashion.. I'd be happier if I could just write something to do this automatically, then I don't have to stress over it. I also want to email the checkout date to the guy who does the room cleaning/turnover. the management services likely also want ways to automatically accept bookings or to better manage the listings themselves. When I have a change to my description, I have to update all my listings manually. Similarly, I don't use the airbnb built-in guidebook because it's inconvenient for me to go in there 4 different times to add a restaurant recommendation.. I can simply update the PDF doc I send my guests and I'm done. I also agree this adds fuel to the fire of those claiming airbnb is just a multi-billion dollar company out to make a buck.. but why can't they be a multi-billion dollar company out to make a buck by helping support individuals, small local businesses and communities?
Deena:
i think this makes it pretty clear that they aren't going to compromise on anything that protects home-sharers at the expense of commercial hosts. it will be up to us to convince the supervisors to carve out any unlimited exception for us.
PEter:
Deena, I think we (Hosts) and Airbnb need to work together to fight against the proposed restrictions. Clearly, Airbnb has its commercial interests in doing so, and Hosts have a different (but consistent) set of interests; namely, we both have a common goal of defeating these restrictions and on that basis, there is enough common ground for working together. This is not the time for division among friends.
Tom:
Frankly, I don’t know how to respond to this. Critics have been pointing out “bad actors” now Airbnb is promoting commercial operators? Peter, if Airbnb is promoting group operators of mulitple homes in San Francisco; I can’t support this on many different levels. It just doesn’t make sense. First it was about homesharing our personal homes....now it is big operators with multiple homes?
Peter:
Tom, I'm not sure that they're talking about "group operators of multiple homes in San Francisco." There are no details about this and I believe the program hasn't even been rolled out yet. It may be that it will only operate in cities where this is legal, and with property managers who legally operate short-term properties (like Embassy Suites). Let's not jump to any conclusions too soon.
Tom:
Which cities is this legal Peter?
Peter:
Tom, I don't have time to do the research, but I'd be flabbergasted if this were illegal in every city in the world. I would not be surprised if there are many cities in which there simply aren't any laws governing this, or cities that intentionally have very liberal property restrictions - cities whose economies rely on tourism or business conventions come to mind: Shenzhen, Shanghai, Bangkok, Aspen CO, Cancun, Puerto Vallarta, Jamaica etc etc.
Keith
Keith4 months ago
If I recall..at the planning commission hearing the city planner said that the consensus at the convention from which he just returned roughly 1/3 of cities represented legalized str with no restrictions. 1/3 made it illegal and 1/3 legalized with restrictions similar to what sf did.
Deena:
I'm all for working together. but so far it hasn't seemed that airbnb is interested in compromising on the hosted vs. unhosted issue. perhaps they're just holding back to not negotiate issue by issue. but i still think we need to advocate and write letters ourselves and not only depend on their lobbyists or PR people. i know you've been working with airbnb folks a lot longer than i have, Peter, but it is possible that their interests are not totally aligned with live-in hosts like many of us are.
Keith:
While we have a common goal, their interests are not necessarily the same as our interests and so we shouldn't rely on their PR people and lobbyists entirely, but instead leverage them to do the heavy lifting where they will and then do what we must to get the rest of our message heard. AirBnB financially benefits from the "bad actors" but it's not in their interests if those bad actors cause legislation to become super restrictive. It's in AirBnB's best interest to have unrestricted STR's in every city in the world. but that's not going to happen, so they have to navigate waters. it doesn't mean you have to get on their boat.