How Airbnb wants to become the Amazon of tourism

He publishes photos of the runway at the Berliner Dom, Buddybären and Kindl in the pub. He is looking forward to his airbnb accommodation. He behaves like many visitors to Berlin.

Chris Lehane is not an ordinary tourist, but the chief lobbyist of Airbnb. As such, he travels around the world to convince mayors that his investment platform stimulates tourism and urban economies.

700,000 Airbnb users stayed in Berlin

300 million travelers last year made use of nearly five million offers on the platform. "In Berlin, 700,000 people booked accommodation the year before," says Lehane. The company, founded ten years ago, now has a value of more than $ 30 billion. But with success grow the conflicts. Whether in Spain, Switzerland or Singapore: Airbnb tourism is becoming too much for cities in more and more countries. The apartments would be converted into more lucrative holiday apartments and thus driven rents, is the common accusation. Also in Berlin, where Lehane spoke this week in the Senate of the regulation of the platform.

The city has been trying for years with the anti-alienation law against attacks. It was revised in the spring and Lehane praised the law in the highest terms. "We also want a system to ensure that no house is out of the market," says the manager. It then calculates that only 13% of apartments in Berlin are offered more than 180 days a year. This corresponds to 0.2% of the overall market. "It does not have a significant impact on the housing market," explains Lehane.

Urban Development Senator Karin Lompscher and his Secretary of State Sebastian Scheel (both on the left) see it differently. Therefore, everyone must obtain a permit, which wants to temporarily rent its four walls as a holiday apartment. From August, the transition period ends, then for commercials, the registration number must be indicated. Until now, however, the demand is manageable, a month ago, applications in many districts could be counted on the one hand. The Insideairbnb portal recently counted more than 26,000 offers in Berlin, almost half of which were entire apartments and therefore – unlike single rooms – subject to authorization.

Airbnb offers technical badistance to the Senate

Airbnb supports the rules and the authorization procedure was too complicated and bureaucratic. Therefore, Lehane tried during his visit to convince the Berlin Senate to jointly offer an online registration process. He even offered to bring programmers from San Francisco for a short-term implementation. "Our experience shows that either you install such a system, or we meet again in a year and we have the same discussions," says Lehane.

In cities like San Francisco, Chicago, Philadelphia or, more recently, Vancouver, there are corresponding interfaces with the respective municipal governments. The Senate now wants to look closely at such examples and look at cooperation. With more than 500 cities worldwide, room service now works together. Airbnb, for example, automatically introduces the bed tax in Dortmund and soon to Frankfurt-am-Main. The company also made a corresponding offer to the Berlin Senate, which however declined

Still More Cities Tighten the Rules

Many other cities are also on a confrontational course. Paris, the world's most popular Airbnb destination, has also imposed a license and continued the platform in the spring, as most commercials still have no registration number. The Swiss cities of Bern and Geneva plan to limit leases to a maximum of 60 days a year. In Spain, Madrid and Barcelona want to reduce the supply, and Palma de Mallorca even plans to ban the rental of rooms completely. In Japan too, strict rules have been in effect since June. Here, Airbnb has even blocked offers that violate him. From 80 percent, the number of ads should have decreased. Airbnb has even set up a $ 10 million compensation fund for affected customers whose bookings are now broken.

Even in cities working with Airbnb, the pressure is rising. For example, Amsterdam was a pioneer and introduced a 60-day lease term in 2016, with Airbnb automatically blocking bids over it. Nevertheless, the city is dissatisfied with the development: from 2019, the number of days allowed will be halved to 30.

A billion tourists aims Airbnb

Airbnb wants to always grow. "Our goal is to have one billion travelers a year on Airbnb by 2028," says Lehane. And he should not stay with room service. Airbnb manufacturers dream of a complete travel app: "Questions about how to get where you sleep, what you do there or where you eat." The previous year, the portal launched "discoveries": guided tours, cooking clbades or even concerts can be booked in more than 180 destinations.

The collected data can then be used to recommend new destinations to users. For example, if you book surf lessons, Airbnb might suggest other great places to surf. "We are expanding it step by step," says Lehane. Flight bookings have also been experimented.

Is not he afraid of more conflicts if Airbnb becomes as dominant in tourism as Amazon in the trade? On the contrary. Lehane, who previously worked as a senior advisor to American politicians such as Bill Clinton and Al Gore, sees Airbnb's expansion as a social task. After all, robots and artificial intelligence will replace many jobs in the future. "Tourism is one of the few areas where new jobs will be created for people," says Lehane. In times of fast-changing work patterns, Airbnb could be an alternative. "We provide an ecosystem for people who want to earn something for living expenses or self-employment," says Lehane.