Airbnb to limit bookings by people under 25 in Canada

OTTAWA — People under 25 will no longer be able to rent local listings for entire homes on Airbnb in Canada, the company announced Wednesday after a fatal shooting at a Toronto apartment booked through the website.

The restriction will apply only to homes young Airbnb users attempt to rent within the communities where they already live. 

Guests under 25 years will still be able to book a private room within a host's primary residence, and could be exempted from the prohibition if they receive positive evaluations in at least three recent stays.

The aim is to curb unauthorized use of Airbnb properties, including for "unauthorized parties," Airbnb Senior Vice President Chris Lehane told a press conference.

"We know from our research that 99.9 percent of the people on Airbnb are good people... and treat homes like their own homes," he said.

"We have a 0.3 percent incident rate across our platform when it comes to issues involving property damage and a 0.6 percent incident rate when it involves personal security issues.

"Those numbers," he said, "get higher when you're looking at... reservations made by people under 25... within the community they live in."

The pilot, if it succeeds in reducing violence and damage to properties, may be applied in other jurisdictions, he said.

It comes just days after three men aged 19, 20 and 21 were shot dead at a Toronto downtown waterfront neighborhood apartment. Two others were injured.

On January 8, an 18-year-old was also killed at an Airbnb-rented house in downtown Ottawa.

And last October, a gunman opened fire at a house party in Orinda, California that was an Airbnb rental. Four men and a woman were killed. 

Lehane also announced a 24-hour hotline for neighbors who suspect mischief at an Airbnb property, as well as a partnership with a group of Canadian doctors lobbying for stricter gun control laws.

Airbnb says that 2 million people stay at its listed homes in 100,000 cities every night.

Agence France-Presse 

Airbnb CEO pledges to verify all listings

Airbnb plans to conduct a comprehensive review of every property listed on its platform as part of a series of initiatives to give customers “peace of mind,” Brian Chesky, the company’s chief executive, announced at the DealBook Conference on Wednesday.

By the end of next year, Chesky said, Airbnb will check the accuracy of photographs, addresses and other information posted with each property, as well as verify that the listings meet safety standards and that the hosts are who they say they are.

“We’re going to make sure we can stand behind every single listing, every single host,” he said. “We want to give peace of mind to our guests.”

The announcement comes less than a week after five people were killed at a party in an Airbnb rental house in Northern California on Oct. 31. Two days later, Chesky announced a ban on “party houses.”

In addition, he said at the conference, the company would conduct especially rigorous reviews of “high-risk” reservations that seem likely to lead to parties. It would also establish a hotline to address concerns from neighbors, he said, and guarantee a new Airbnb placement or a full refund to guests who check in to a property that does not match the description on the website.

“About 2 million people a night stay in Airbnbs and most without incident,” Chesky said. Still, he added, “It’s hard to prevent every bad thing happening.”

Across the technology sector, companies are reckoning with the unintended consequences of how people use their platforms, including the spread of disinformation on Facebook and racist taunts on Twitter.

“Many of us in this industry over the last 10 years are going from a hands-off model where the internet is an immune system to realizing that’s not really enough,” Chesky said. “We have to take more responsibility for the stuff on our platform. This has been a gradual, maybe too gradual, transition for our industry.”

Airbnb has faced pushback from critics who argue that its listings push often unruly tourists into residential areas. On Tuesday, the company suffered a major defeat in Jersey City, New Jersey, where residents voted overwhelmingly in favor of stricter regulations on short-term rentals that will almost certainly shrink the number of listings just a short train ride away from Manhattan.

Airbnb plans to go public in 2020, joining a series of tech companies that have made public stock offerings, with varying levels of success. Asked Wednesday about an IPO versus a direct listing, Chesky was noncommittal, saying, “I certainly don’t have any news to make.” But, he added, “We also don’t need to raise new money.”


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source: news.abs-cbn.com

Airbnb expands offerings with new upscale categories

SAN FRANCISCO, United States - Home-share titan Airbnb on Thursday took aim at more upscale travelers with new categories including premium lodging and properties for "trips of a lifetime."

In one of the most significant updates since the San Francisco-based firm launched a decade ago, Airbnb added what it called "Plus" and "Beyond" lodging options along with a handful of new categories such as bed-and-breakfast, boutique and "unique space."

The new options came in Airbnb's "roadmap" described as putting the sharing economy star on a path to serving one billion guests annually by 2028.

Airbnb said its Plus offerings would be inspected for comfort, cleanliness, and design, and were said to be "intended for guests looking for beautiful homes, exceptional hosts and added peace of mind."

The category launched with 2,000 homes in 13 cities.

Beyond Airbnb, which stemmed from the acquisition last year of Luxury Retreats, will launch in coming months and offer customized "trips of a lifetime," the company said in a statement.

Airbnb also unveiled a "collections" categories that will offer venues for occasions ranging from work to weddings.

"Ten years ago we never dreamed of what Airbnb could become," said co-founder and chief executive Brian Chesky.

"In fact, people thought the idea that strangers would stay in each other's homes was crazy. Today, millions of people every night do just that."

Airbnb has grown to feature 4.5 million places to stay in 81,000 cities. Over the last 10 years, Airbnb hosts overall have earned more than $41 billion and guests have checked into Airbnb lodging more than 300 million times, according to the company.

Airbnb announced key changes in its leadership team early this month and said that it won't launch a share offering in 2018.

With an estimated market value of some $30 billion, Airbnb trails only Uber among the US-based venture-funded "unicorns" which have raised private capital without going to the stock markets.

Like Uber, Airbnb has built a business model on allowing individuals to tap an underutilized resource -- in this case their homes -- to earn money, but has also drawn criticism for roiling real estate markets and established hotel operators.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Airbnb remodels online home

SAN FRANCISCO -- Online lodgings listings service Airbnb took the wraps off a major remodel of its online home complete with a new logo.

"Airbnb has outgrown the original Airbnb brand," startup co-founder and chief Brian Chesky said in a post at the website.

"What started as a way for a few friends to pay the rent has now transformed into something bigger and more meaningful than we ever imagined."

The website lets people take in house guests who pay for stays in a variation of a "collective consumption" theme that taps into the power of the Internet to let folks share the benefits and costs of possessions such as cars and homes.

"Like us, you may have started out thinking you were just renting out a room to help pay the bills,' Chesky said in a message aimed at Airbnb users.

"Or maybe you were just booking a bed for a night on an unexpected layover. However we first entered this community, we all know that getting in isn't a transaction. It's a connection that can last a lifetime."

Chesky said that changes to Airbnb website were intended to reflect those in its community and the notion that the service lets travelers find places where they can feel as though they belong.

"We have redesigned every single page of the user experience across the web and mobile to bring our new identity to life," Chesky said.

Changes included an improved "Discover" section to spotlight desirable nearby locales where Airbnb users can find lodging, and making it easier to explore listings and make reservations.

Airbnb has come under scrutiny in some US cities due to concerns that some people use the service to run what amount to illegal hotels.

The San Francisco-based startup was launched in 2008 and quickly became very popular.

Traditional hotel chains see it as a rival and accuse it of helping people avoid taxes and hosting illegal hotels on its website.

source: www.abs-cbnnews.com