Airbnb pilots information-sharing platform for cities

Airbnb’s new City Portal, which it calls “a first-of-its-kind solution” for governments and tourism organisations, aims to provide cities with better insight into rentals and compliance, bolster safety and improve communication.

In its first phase, the Airbnb City Portal is launching with over 15 pilot cities and tourism organisation partners. These include Buffalo, Calgary, unincorporated Miami-Dade, New Orleans, Palm Springs, Raleigh, Sacramento, Seattle, San Francisco and Vancouver. Tourism partners include Visit Tampa Bay, Visit Denmark, the City of Krakow, Sao Paulo State Secretary of Tourism, Visit Scotland, Visit Tuscany and Wesgro (Western Cape of South Africa).

Airbnb says it plans to continue scaling the City Portal based on feedback from pilot partners.

Addressing city concerns

Compliance tools within City Portal aim to help governments develop and manage short-term rental policies and regulations. For example, a city with an applicable short-term rental law could use the compliance tools to flag listings with a registration problem, to have them removed.

The tool includes local and global Airbnb data insights into short-term rental market trends and remitted tourist tax revenue in places where tax agreements have been established. Tourism organisation partners could use this information to see where guests are coming from and adjust marketing accordingly.

The platform acts as a central location for resources such as the Airbnb Neighbourhood Support hotline and Law Enforcement portal, aiming to help city officials reach support staff faster. City Portal also facilitates direct access to Airbnb team members who can provide one-to-one support on questions about listings, rules or other matters.

Many cities have raised concerns that the growth of home-sharing platforms such as Airbnb has contributed to a reduction in the availability of affordable housing in some areas, as well as issues such as neighbourhood noise and local businesses being pushed out. While several have adopted local laws to better regulate short-term home rentals (STHR), some have argued that a lack of data hinders them from tracking and enforcing the rules.

City Portal could go some way to addressing these issues but it is yet to be seen whether it goes far enough and reaches all cities.

A group of 22 European Cities recently called on the European Commission to impose stronger regulations on STHR platforms, including potentially requiring companies to share more data with cities to aid oversight. They argue for the mandate to be included in the forthcoming Digital Services Act, which will update the digital services legal framework in Europe for the first time in 20 years.

Adaptive tool

Brian Chesky, CEO and Co-Founder of Airbnb, commented: “We created this tool with cities and our goal is to ensure it works for big cities and small towns, and is adaptive to different needs. The way we live and travel continues to change, with people dispersing to more places. The Airbnb City Portal will make it easier for cities of all sizes to work with us and benefit from our community.”

Kathryn Holm, Vancouver Chief License Inspector, said: “The Airbnb City Portal provides us with important insights as we continue to monitor and regulate the short-term rental market in Vancouver, and the additional data will help us enforce our regulations.

“As the first city in Canada to sign an MOU with Airbnb, we are grateful for this evolving partnership and to be part of the launch of this portal.”