I’m told city council won’t decide until January sometime what to do about regulating short-term rentals.
But, in the meantime, Airbnb is doing everything it can to sell itself to council and the general public. The numerous ads are still running (“It helps me pay the bills in this expensive city” “I would never have visited Vancouver if it weren’t for Airbnb.”) and the reports on the benefits just keep on coming. I’ve written about two of them already, the one about economic spin-offs for the city and the one about how much, rather how little, local residents are making from Airbnb.
The latest salvo was Airbnb’s voluntary move to take 130 listings off its site of hosts who appeared to be running commercial businesses.
This seems to be a strategy the company has used in cities where it is fighting to stay in the market, like New York and San Francisco — cities that are popular for Airbnb.