Another host, Anthony Farmer, filed a proposed class action lawsuit against Airbnb in the US District Court for the Northern District of California in November. The lawsuit, which seeks to override Airbnb’s arbitration terms, accuses the company of violating its contract and fiduciary duty and violating consumer protection laws.
Christopher Nulty, an Airbnb spokesperson, said the company’s policies put health and safety first, which would ultimately help hosts “by maintaining high guest loyalty and demand for Airbnb listings.” He said Mr. Farmer’s suit was groundless.
‘Back to our roots’
In May, Airbnb announced it would go ‘back to our roots’ by focusing on ‘regular people hosting their homes’.
That position has business advantages. Professional landlords with many advertisements can take away homes and turn neighborhoods into tourist zones, leading politicians and neighborhood associations to impose rules. A family renting out a guest room often seems less threatening.
In a financial prospectus in November, Airbnb said 90 percent of its hosts were “ individual hosts, ” defined as those who created their listings directly on the site rather than using specialized software to sign up. But according to Transparent, a short-term host software provider, only 37 percent of Airbnb listings in September were managed by single-home people. About half of the listings were managed by landlords with two to 20 properties and 14 percent by landlords with 21 or more.
So when Airbnb focused on individual hosts, it further annoyed its professional hosts.
“Their business is based in a sense on professional hosts, but they don’t often say that,” said Mr. Vail, the operator in Columbus. “They don’t want that message to be the headline.”
Mr. Nulty said Airbnb’s focus on core hosts was not at the expense of professional hosts. He said professional hosts were represented on the Host Advisory Board, a group the company formed in October to meet hosts with Airbnb executives.