One thing I didn't see is AB&B promoting its business model to affected classes of people. Get more affected classes of people on your platform (i.e. as hosts) and have them lead the way.
Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
21–30 of 403 posts
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#22Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…
What do you feel Airbnb should have done about it?
I haven't tried to use it before, so I'm not sure about the process, however it seems to me that a homeowner is in no different of a position than a hotelier.
It would make sense that your price contains the cost of insurance, and that your own rules / t&c's govern the guests stay.
Surely the recourse is a civil case against the guest rather than against airbnb?
I doubt any hotel could sue booking.com for the actions of a guest
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#23well people should have figured out by now : Airbnb's aren't hotels. And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. Airbnb can't have it both ways, they know it and this effort will be pure PR.
> And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason.
They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more.
Don't want to let black people stay in your house? Don't put it on AirBnB.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. Certain customers are problematic and can case damage, which is especially possible when you let them occupy your property (the host is the one who ends up paying for repairs, good luck getting it out of the customer). Usually, in a hotel this problem is fixed by requiring credit card with a high security deposit it check in, such as needing a few hundred dollars for incidentals plus room and tax. Th…
> In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems. So, people with credit cards and a $500+ limit are less likely to cause problems? As someone who dabbled in landlording (never again!) I can tell you that people with money are just as capable of trashing your house as people without money.
of course not. People with $500+ limit will automatically be charged for the $5000 in damages they caused. It's all about risk and accountability.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not necessarily. Certain customers are problematic and can case damage, which is especially possible when you let them occupy your property (the host is the one who ends up paying for repairs, good luck getting it out of the customer). Usually, in a hotel this problem is fixed by requiring credit card with a high security deposit it check in, such as needing a few hundred dollars for incidentals plus room and tax. Th…
> In effect, this doesn't guarantee the hotel payment for any damages, but it keeps out the type of guest that typically cause problems. So, people with credit cards and a $500+ limit are less likely to cause problems? As someone who dabbled in landlording (never again!) I can tell you that people with money are just as capable of trashing your house as people without money.
As someone who grew up in the hotel business starting with making beds and has dealt with thousands and thousands of people from worldwide, there is a very clear association with a person's access to credit (aka wealth, what kind of culture they grew up in, their level of education), and the likelihood of them causing issues.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#26Yeah, well after having a multi-day house party thrown in my Houston home by a local guy that had the gall to write "God Bless you" several times before the rental, and Airbnb doing nothing about the damages (huge scratches on brand new $5K bedroom suite, a frigging water-logged kitchen ceiling, cabinet doors torn off hinges, etc.) we will no longer rent to any local, of any race. Anyone that rents my house is going…
I'm pretty sure your new personal rule-of-thumb isn't discrimination.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#27I don't know if this is really a tractable problem. At the end of the day, either airbnb lets hosts decide who stays or doesn't. If they don't let hosts decide, they'll likely lose a ton of hosts, since having someone stay in your home is a very personal thing and a huge risk. If they do, then they're going to have significant discrimination problems as long as people are discriminatory, i.e., basically forever.
That was my thought here as well. It's one thing to have very public businesses with anti-discrimination rules, but something like Air BnB where people have to decide in most cases who they are going to let into their homes is a much more complicated problem.
We're seeing a wide trend in the US where people want rules to prevent people from making choices that they don't agree with, which was basically the opposite of the point of the US.
What if a host wanted to turn away somebody who was an avid white supremacist? This isn't the same thing as giving somebody a key to a hotel room.
EDIT: Worth pointing to another comment that cites the law: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12453577
> Those anti-discrimination laws don't apply to hosts' private homes or bedrooms.[1] Paraphrase of law: "All persons shall be entitled ..., and accommodations of any place of public accommodation,..., without discrimination ... other than ... a building which contains not more than five rooms for rent ... which is actually occupied by the proprietor ... as his residence"
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#28well people should have figured out by now : Airbnb's aren't hotels. And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. Airbnb can't have it both ways, they know it and this effort will be pure PR.
> And people should be free to deny others staying at their place, for whatever reason. They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more. Don't want to let black people stay in your house? Don't put it on AirBnB.
> They are. Once they turn it into a public accommodation - which Title II defines as "any inn, hotel, motel, or other establishment which provides lodging to transient guests" - they don't get to do that any more.
Are all Airbnbs title II rentals ? I don't think so. That's why Airbnb is successful, because it operates at the "edge" of the law, shifting the risk on both clients and hosts.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#29Doesn't discrimination end up hurting the hosts in the end? Having less demand drives the rental costs down.
It didn't hurt businesses in the American south enough to compel them to stop discriminating. I don't get it either, why would I turn down someone's money because they're black, but lots of people did and whatever economic pain they felt from it was apparently outweighed by the joy of being racist assholes.
Re: Airbnb Adopts Rules in Effort to Fight Discrimination by Its Hosts
#30I'm confused by the responses in here so far. How does discriminating based on race, gender, age, etc guarantee that your property will not be damaged?
If you want the access and business that using AirBnb's platform provides then you need to adhere to their rules. Pretty simple. If that's a problem use craigslist or some other service so you can use whatever prejudices you have to screen guests.