Airbnb: Dream or Nightmare?

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Airbnb: Dream or Nightmare?
With 80,000 people in the UK listing their property on Airbnb last year, the documentary investigates the room bookings site’s impact on the rental market, amid claims that it is pushing up prices and turning residential areas into tourist zones. The programme also looks at users’ positive and negative experiences of using the website, from valuable extra income, to houses ruined by out-of-control parties, prized possessions being stolen, inappropriate behaviour, and substandard accommodation.

This documentary will be showing tonight on Channel 4 at 10pm. Uk / Ireland only.
Should be interesting!

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I’ve taped it so please don’t say what happens until I’ve had a chance to watch it :slight_smile:

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Crap forgot it, just going to watch the last 1/2 hour. Was adding new information to my airbnb packs for guests. I bet it will have a negative slant,

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It’s bound to, really. The media never look at Airbnb in a positive way. Where would be the news in that, after all?

:wink:

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COMPLETELY negative slant! They’ve cherry-picked the nightmare scenarios and so far not had a good word to say. I know we all have our complaints about Air, but really the programme is so biased as to be laughable if it wasn’t that it could influence potential guests (and hosts).

I’ve given up in disgust but might watch the last ten minutes to see if there are any redeeming features! I suppose we shouldn’t expect much more from Channel 4 …

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As Jacquo said, there’s no story if it’s “40,000 people used airbnb last night with no problem.”

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The first part is very obvious and very shallow.
But one thing they got right is that AirBnB’s host protection is not an insurance, and AirBnB will try to avoid paying unless the media gets involved.

The second part is a lot more interesting.
And AirBnB’s reply on the one host with 250 listings is hilarious…

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Right! There’s no news in good news…

“In the news today, an airbnb host outside of DC met a lovely family from China. She sat and had a great discussion with the young woman who booked the room about life in China vs the US. The mom in the family cooked dinner downstairs. Everyone had a great time, and, Ms. Mooney got paid.”

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‘Then a host in Florida had a lovely man staying with her who loved the apartment and the location and left it in better shape than he found it.’

Nope, it just wouldn’t make good telly :slight_smile:

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The second part was definitely a lot more interesting.

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It seems to me that Airbnb is too diverse to be captured in one localized documentary. Is the problem Air or something else? Also @Chris, I asked on another thread where you got your figure of 80% of Air listings are commercial establishments. You must not have seen the post.

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What about C4 On Demand :slight_smile:

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I’ll give you an update on it tomorrow.

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But in this info graphic there are no stats on how many are commercial properties, are there?

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Exactly. But Chris said it was 80%. I asked for his source but…

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It may be 80% in some areas of the world. Las Vegas maybe? Also, I thought Air was clamping down on property management companies, huh?

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Could be. There are huge regional differences. Yana found only 10% of hosts in her area had instant book. In my area it was over 40% and nationally (US) it seems to be in the 30 something % range.

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I flip flop on the IB thing. I’d do it if it weren’t for that one weird guy who comes to my area often to participate in marathons. He’s the one who asked if I had anything to eat because he was hungry after his run. He also used the washer/dryer to do his running outfit. He stays one night, and loves my place.

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Please tell! I live in the US!

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Airbnb tried to play it down by saying the information was inaccurate and that some hosts list multiple rooms in their property.