How do you know?

It's not going to show up as hotels always 100% full.

If there was demand from 10,000 tourists, and there were 7,000 hotel rooms and 7,000 AirBNB properties, then you could have 5,000 (71%) of hotel rooms occupied and 5,000 (71%) of AirBNB properties occupied and you'd think there was no shortage of hotel rooms.

But there'd be no shortage of hotel rooms only because of AirBNB. The reality is that there'd be demand from 10,000 tourists and only 7,000 hotel rooms.

> Usually tourist cities don't have a hard time building new hotels. Building new housing can be tough.

Well tough on them. Lots of things are tough. I have no sympathy -- new housing should be built, end of story. It's not sending a man to a moon, it's just regular old governance.

It's very clear that many tourists want to stay in AirBNB's. This is a valid consumer preference to stay somewhere that feels more like a home, in a place that feels like a neighborhood instead of a busy downtown, with a normal amount of space rather than a cramped hotel room, and at less cost. It seems silly to say that's a bad thing.

Not for those that suffer from it.

>There is some number of residents and visitors in any given city, and some number of permanent and temporary beds for them to sleep in. Yes, AirBnB shifts some of the housing stock from resident to visitor housing, but, that's really just a zoning and regulation problem, not a capacity issue.

Well, unless people en masse are willing to go out there and build new houses, and prefer to use them for resident renting instead of AirBnB, it is a capacity issue.

Capacity doesn't magically increase with demand in the real world. Especially if there's a big, more lucrative, sink for new capacity.

A society's benefit takes precedent over the desires of individuals. A society wants people living in their homes most of the time. They want the majority of housing for residents with very few, specific examples such as resort towns.

> It is the equivalent premise to saying that you should ban hotels so there are more long term residents, or known as, reduce short term housing stock to increase long term housing stock.

Again, that's not the case. Hotels are purpose built, temporary places for people to stay. AirBnB is made on the premise of converting existing long-term housing in to short-term rentals.

> You might also not hear anyone say they use cabs more because of lyft and uber but I assure you that they do. Hotels have not particularly suffered their market share because of airbnb, but airbnb is widely used in all major cities. Hostels probably took a hit, but nowhere near the usage airbnb has. Hotels ~=, Hostels -=, Airbnb ++++= => people are travelling more.

I don't have any numbers here and without doing it, I'm not going to hand wave at it anymore.

As someone who has traveled extensively, I agree entirely about "disneyland syndrome", and I'm one of those travelers that tries to avoid such things. I generally don't travel to places which are tourist destinations, in the first place. Regardless, my mode of travel is to try to meet people, stay long enough that I can live normally as a local, mostly buy groceries and cook, and work during the week only going out in the evenings and weekends.

AirBnB is essential to the way I travel, because it allows me to rent an apartment for a month that has normal apartment amenities like a basic kitchen. Many of the places I've visited have few or no hotels. One place I actually did stay in a hotel... the only hotel in the entire town, which also had the only restaurant in the entire town in it. In communities like this, someone offering you a room in their home or letting you rent their apartment while they are away is a critical pathway to being able to travel there in the first place and I don't think attracts the sort of people expecting a packaged experience.

From my perspective, AirBnB has enabled me and others like me to connect to the world and experience things that would be impossible otherwise, and at the same time has provided opportunities for those we interacted with along the way (I leveraged my network while traveling to help many of the people I met, connecting a budding craft brewer with resources to help them succeed, introducing a very good local photographer to english-language resources online to let them sell their photography, connecting someone who wanted to come to the US as an SWE with the right people so they could get hired and have their H1B sponsored, etc).

It's not really AirBnB, or rather what AirBnB is in essence, that's the issue, it's that it creates and enables a pathway for individuals to skirt location regulations to make a profit. Many of the places I visited had no regulations against short-term rentals because the idea that someone might do such a thing wasn't really on the mind of local regulators, but in key tourist destinations this is very much on the mind of local regulators, not the least of which because they can tax tourism directly via stays.

The people that want 'tourism dollars' are not the same as those who want affordable rent in the city they were born and raised.

The key issue (at least in Europe) is that Airbnb has reduced the access barrier of landlords to a tax avoindance revenue stream.

If you are sharing a room in your house in the summer that's a side gig. If you are buying flats left and right and giving them to an agent to manage you Airbnb reservations then that is just a Hotel without the regulations and upfront costs and taxes that should come with it.

In vacation towns, the issue is that tourists are flooding out of hotels, and into livable dwellings.

Our hotel vacancy rates are rising just as fast as our home prices.

Perhaps the solution is tearing down hotels and building high-rise apartments in their stead, but it seems a bit wasteful compared to the alternative (regulating and taxing Airbnbs to nudge tourists back into the hotels designed for them).

But there often is enough supply to meet the demand. The issue is tourists feeling entitled to living in a house, not the fact that all hotels are 100% booked all weekend.

> Also, I wonder if maybe lots of people don't like existing hotels for some reason?

I'm sure that's it, honestly. But when you're traveling away from home, well, don't expect to have a home waiting for you. That's the entitlement.

> It seems the locals get forced out wherever demand vastly exceeds supply, like in the beach town where I used to live, where so many people want to visit and there just isn't enough housing/hotels for them.

Or, just stop short-term rentals. Then the demand wouldn't exceed the supply (at least by the same margin). Or have specific areas designated for them (which most do, and which AirBnB conveniently ignores)

> The locals are opposed to more housing, so inevitably prices goes up and they eventually turn into weekly rentals.

I mean, I can understand why the locals would be opposed to more when there's enough for their demand, it's just the entitled tourists coming in and taking over things that makes it an issue.

That said, there are some fundamental differences with beach condos and mountain cabins (usually built to be rent out, not for locals) as opposed to what goes on in most AirBnB situations (built for residential, then moved away). The former two are generally considered in city planning, whereas people taking over residential neighborhoods is not.

I feel this is an artificial distinction. It's not really the type of building that's involved. People tend to pick whichever of AirBnB or hotel is the most economical for their stay. It's the massive conversion of property from residential to "hotel" by the (often local!) owners that's the problem.

You mean a hotel? Hotels are not inadequate for longer stays. If someone desires the comforts of a home, they can move there and actually rent/buy a home.

> The reason AirBnB exists is that tourists are not properly accounted for in city planning and not properly serviced by hotels.

This is a werid entitlement. Tourists aren't entitled to overrun and impose a serious negative impact upon a town/city's housing supply because they feel like they 'deserve' to vacation there.

It's actually mostly the opposite. More money coming into a town tends to lift all boats - unless, like many contemporary American towns, building more homes in town is made de facto illegal through regulations and planning.

> Airbnb made it worse, because not only is there the traditional gentrification but now also people who own apartments can seek higher rents from tourists than with locals.

Equally those higher rents are possible because you're making tourism possible for people who probably couldn't afford to travel otherwise. The people staying in (regular apartment) Airbnbs tend to be lower-middle-class at best, and I don't think we should automatically care more about locals than tourists just because they happened to be born somewhere nice.

So just write in a contract "This residence can not be used as a hotel". Done, problem solved. Why on earth do we need government's involved again?

> There are also places where vibrant short-term rental markets may exacerbate tight housing markets.

AirBNB in a small influencer in the housing market, i would be pretty disgusted if my elected officials were pursuing airbnb in an effort to normalize the housing market. To me it would be like the capitan on the titanic telling everyone to start hauling water to save the ship.

> I've had nothing but good Airbnb experiences, in SFBA, NYC, and London.

I have never used it personally but to me it seems everyone who has a complaint isn't using it and is being affected by externalities which they can only fight using the government.

Any other actions disgruntled people would otherwise take would be illegal by nature due to property rights.

Huge part of this is actually state over-regulation. People just can't build houses. If local folks can earn some money on the side by renting out their houses, this is a good thing. Why tourists should be forced to pay for over-expensive hotels? Instead of pressing companies like AirBnB, people should press governments to remove regulations that are not necessary only serve to hire civil servants out of family members of ruling parties (not to mention pocketing bribes to give permissions to build) and make the money for the privileged.

By asking for even more regulation, you are just tightening the loop on your neck.

Because Airbnbs aren't flophouses. They're holding usually just a couple or family, maybe a dozen people tops unless the place being rented is a really big detached house. Expecting them to be held to the same standards as hotels is not necessary. If this lack of compliance is so dangerous, then why are letting people live in these places full time?

> Visitors and residents have very different incentives. Tourists may wish to stay in cute residential areas, but they are not necessarily interested in being neighborly -- they're not particularly invested in the comfort and safety of the people around them, because they'll be leaving soon.

Tourists also spend more money while on vacation, especially on small businesses like restaurants and bars. More importantly, they bring this money in externally. More tourism attracts the ire of residents that now have to deal with out-of-town people walking around their neighborhood, but I have rarely seen someone complain about negative economic impact of tourism let alone make a coherent argument about why it's bad.

> People do a lot of gross stuff in a hotel that you probably don't want to encounter in your apartment building. Drugs, prostitution, loud parties.

Plenty of people do these things in their apartments, condos, and houses, too.

> No amount of "zoning" is going to make the commingling of apartments and hotels attractive to full-time residents, nor will any change in "zoning" make flophouses less profitable.

Tourists generally don't want to visit residential areas. Airbnb-ing instead of renting a hotel is usually less convenient because the former are further from the city center. When I used an Airbnb in Iceland it was more of a hassle because I effectively needed to rent a car (and then subsequently park a car) to get to the center of the city. It was worth it because of cost. If there were hotel rooms available at the same cost of Airbnb then I would have used that.

However, the number of hotels is usually kept artificially limited. This drives up the cost of renting hotel rooms, which benefits hoteliers. This is the main reason why Airbnb is so much cheaper than hotels. Hoteliers don't want to build more hotels because that would drive their costs down and their expenses up.

And tourism is planned into this with the way zoning permits work. But AirBnB skirts those rules. Also the negatives of losing housing in a city far outweigh any financial benefit that could come to it, especially as most won't be reaped by the people that are being forced out...or it will be taken from them in terms of increased rent because the supply is much smaller.

> The lack of regulations is an issue of local governments not catching up to tech companies, as usual, not Airbnb.

Or it's because AirBnB actively lobbies against it and refuses to enforce rules, saying it's up to the individual providers. They facilitate it, and often most things on AirBnB are illegal and against the zoning laws of whatever building they're being used for.

> What if those tourists do eventually become locals after staying at an Airbnb? Are you against migrants as well?

What a ridiculous question. Obviously I'm not against migrants. I'm against tourists thinking they have a right to live like locals. > The locals do benefit financially from tourism. Markets like Airbnb's simply accelerate this, which of course introduces issues, but governments should carry more of the blame for this than a company that disrupts the hotel industry.

> The locals do benefit financially from tourism. Markets like Airbnb's simply accelerate this, which of course introduces issues, but governments should carry more of the blame for this than a company that disrupts the hotel industry.

The locals benefit nothing from AirBnB. The landlords do, sure, but the actual residents and regular workers do not. If anything, it makes matters worse as rents are driven up, or they have to move further away from work. In the worst case scenarios, the town just becomes tourist-oriented and there's no other jobs left. That's a horrible thing as if the tourism ever dries up, the town is left up the creek.

But also tell the locals they benefit financially when their local bar closed down because the landlord thought it'd be better to make it a shop that caters towards tourists; or when all their neighbors move out because of the rambunctious drunken tourists coming in at 2 every night of the week; or when their landlord decides to evict them/up their rent because the landlord knows they can make more on AirBnB than renting to residences.

It's a wholly negative impact to everyone except those people who own the AirBnBs, who are often skirting multiple regulations, facilitated by AirBnB itself. It is a net negative for the city, and I know personally that housing crisis in at least one country (Ireland) has been facilitated by it, as the amount of houses on the market in Dublin doubled during the pandemic when tourism was shut down.

Huh? As a frequent vacationer and user of Airbnb (I'm staying in one right now, as it turns out), Airbnb has made vacationing so much better.

I get to stay in a larger variety of neighborhoods and locations. Kitchens are usually standard (good luck finding one in most hotels). There's more space if I want to stay with family or friends. Prices -- even in places where Airbnb hosts are required to pay local hotel taxes -- are much more varied and, in general, better (and when I do decide to choose a hotel for whatever reason prices are often lower due to competition from Airbnb). I could go on...

> Anyone that bitches that the rent is too high, here's your starting point, all those Air BnB rentals are driving the long term rental market up significantly.

I hear this a lot, but fail to see any hard evidence that killing short-term rentals would fix this problem. I don't doubt that short-term rentals are contributing to housing unaffordability, but there are much better solutions than banning them. Which brings me to:

> Adding 20% more units to the market would save you a ton of money.

Agreed! I've been saying that for years. Please, build 20% more units, and I think prices will indeed go down. Hell, don't stop at 20%, even. If there's demand, build!

It's classic tragedy of the commons. Cities that are great to live in and also very attractive for tourists are obviously great places to rent out an apartment over AirBnB in.

But when half the city does that, then the whole character of the place changes and what was previously great about the city is lost. That is harm.

Luckily, cities have the power to regulate this sort of thing.

Cities should be for citizens... tourists belong in hotels.

Right exactly. You build more and you limit the number of AirBnBs.

> As much as you're afraid there is, there isn't infinite demand for Airbnbs. There are only so many hosts with so much money and only so many tourists and staycationers with only so much money.

I largely disagree with this, but it depends on where you live. They are subject to some market forces sure, but also induced demand and simply supplanting residents that might be forced to move between AirBnBs, and even in off-seasons it can be a situation where the owner just leaves the property empty to capitalize on appreciation.

I vehemently disagree. People should be doing what they want, not what some other random person thinks they should be doing. Cities have dead periods all the time: people leave new york in the winter, or buenos aires in the summer. The idea that a community grows stronger by putting a fence is a sad one to me.

> This is only sort of okay. No reasonable person who cares about housing would push to move long term residents to hotels. This is just a terrible premise to put forward.

It is the equivalent premise to saying that you should ban hotels so there are more long term residents, or known as, reduce short term housing stock to increase long term housing stock.

> Do they really? Like whom? AirBnB isn't particularly expensive, and all-in costs are more often than not more expensive than hotels. I don't know _anyone_ who says they travel more because of AirBnb.

You might also not hear anyone say they use cabs more because of lyft and uber but I assure you that they do. Hotels have not particularly suffered their market share because of airbnb, but airbnb is widely used in all major cities. Hostels probably took a hit, but nowhere near the usage airbnb has. Hotels ~=, Hostels -=, Airbnb ++++= => people are travelling more.