> Embrace them and make rules to prevent them from damaging the city they’re coming to experience.
+1, squirting the tourists who are already there does little to discourage other tourists from coming, or to solve the problem that they're competing for the same housing.
That said, I can't help but think that AirBnB(/VRBO/etc...) is just faster to respond to market conditions than traditional hotel businesses because it leverages already built private residences. If land is 5x as profitable as accommodation for tourists, then anywhere where a hotel could be built the value of the land will increase, and thus housing costs. I guess the local govt. has zoning as a lever it can use to restrict where hotels can be built though. Maybe that's the point though, that AirBnB sidesteps zoning, extracting more value from the land than other users can.
> is just faster to respond to market conditions than traditional hotel businesses because it leverages already built private residences.
It's faster because it breaks the law. It's easy to react quickly if you don't bother paying taxes and ignore rules on subletting, etc. It remove a lot of work.
> AirBnB sidesteps zoning
It's not side stepping anything it's often breaking the law, or at least encouraging other people to do so.
+1, squirting the tourists who are already there does little to discourage other tourists from coming, or to solve the problem that they're competing for the same housing.
That said, I can't help but think that AirBnB(/VRBO/etc...) is just faster to respond to market conditions than traditional hotel businesses because it leverages already built private residences. If land is 5x as profitable as accommodation for tourists, then anywhere where a hotel could be built the value of the land will increase, and thus housing costs. I guess the local govt. has zoning as a lever it can use to restrict where hotels can be built though. Maybe that's the point though, that AirBnB sidesteps zoning, extracting more value from the land than other users can.