Regulatory Crackdowns Appear To Be Taking Toll On Airbnb Listings

The days of untrammeled growth may be over as municipalities and other regulatory entities assert their right to oversight in a more coordinated fashion in order to better protect their consumer-citizens from the unintended consequences of the so-called 'sharing economy,' whose benefits, it turns out, are not as widely shared as its advocates claimed.  JL

Ainslee Harris in Fast Company and Quartz Index report:

(Airbnb) listings went from growing 110% in October 2016 to 35% in February 2017.  The Sharing Cities Summit, (is) a gathering of leaders from 22 cities around the world. For mayors, the rise of gig economy startups has often felt like a game of whack-a-mole. Athens, New Orleans, Seoul, Vancouver–each of the participants is grappling with the rise of platforms like Airbnb and Uber, and eager to reassert their regulatory authority through combined clout.
Quartz Barcelona is continuing its crackdown on home sharing services by doubling the number of inspectors searching for unlicensed rentals from 20 to 40.

Hosts caught renting an unlicensed apartment in Barcelona can be fined $33,700. That and other regulatory threats seem to be slowing Airbnb down globally.

Though nights booked on Airbnb more than doubled from 25 million in 2015 to 52 million in 2016, the number of available listings is growing more slowing since last year. Listings went from growing 110% in October 2016 to just 35% in February 2017.

There's no sign that regulations are letting up. Cities around the world are even building an alliance to discuss policies that deal with the sharing economy.

Fast Company

For city mayors, dealing with the rise of gig economy startups has often felt like a game of whack-a-mole. Get a handle on how to regulate one company’s operations, and suddenly another appears.

That dynamic is finally changing–and for the better, says Alicia Glen, New York City’s deputy mayor for housing and economic development. “This is not about any one digital company,” she tells Fast Company. “When we started, it was a very company-by-company exercise. Now it’s clear to me that it’s more sector-by-sector.”
That shift in perspective is central to the policy framework that Glen present(ed) at the Sharing Cities Summit, a gathering of leaders from 22 cities around the world at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Athens, New Orleans, Seoul, Vancouver–each of the participants is grappling with the rise of platforms like Airbnb and Uber, and eager to reassert their regulatory authority through combined clout.
A dozen of the cities formed an alliance last year, meeting in Amsterdam to exchange ideas. “There’s a disconnect between federal policy and what cities need to be doing to make sure they get what they need,” Glen says. “It became pretty clear to me that having this discussion, city-to-city, would be incredibly valuable.”
Now she and her team (are) looking to make those initial discussions more concrete through a daylong series of presentations and working sessions (sample case study: “Increasing Economic Opportunity for Gig Workers”). Themes include fair compensation, health and safety standards, environmental  sustainability, equal opportunity, and data security.
Glen does not expect participants to arrive at exact agreement on policy, particularly when it comes to striking a balance between tourists and residents. She notes, for example, that Amsterdam has instituted Airbnb “no-fly zones” for certain neighborhoods, to protect locals who were feeling under siege. New York, in contrast, has encouraged the growth of Airbnb in neighborhoods that are far from tourist meccas like Times Square. (Not without risk: Earlier this month, a German tourist staying at an Airbnb in Harlem was robbed and sexually assaulted.)
New York City has been conservative in some areas of gig economy policy, and more aggressive in others. Last October the City Council unanimously passed the “Freelance Isn’t Free Act,” to protect freelancers from wage theft; the bill went into effect this week. Meanwhile, shared dining apps operate in a gray zone and Airbnb has been in retreat.
“I want these companies to do well, I want these companies to hire a lot of people,” Glen says. “But I want to do it in a way where they understand that we have a legitimate interest in regulating them.”