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Hi all not sure if anyone else has posted this but there’s a documentary on channel 4 on weds 21st sept at 22.00 about airbnb. not sure if anyone not in the UK is able to access it online or somewhere. here’s the link
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/airbnb-dream-or-nightmare
Thanks will check it out.
Nice I don’t have a tv license. Rarely use all4. Would never of known. 
Thanks, I’ll be able to watch it on Filmon here in Spain, Can recommend that to others.
Channel 4 is free-to-air, so I should be able to wacht it on satellite.
The Dutch documentary was very interesting.
Unfortunately its in dutch and has geoblocking.
But it shows how disruptive AirBnB is, and what is really going, when you start to look behind the fuzzy warm marketing talk.
Oh yes, saw that. Be interesting to see how it is represented
Please expound for those few of us who don’t speak Dutch
yes, i’m curious to know about how ‘disruptive airbnb is’ and for whom? how annoying it can’t be translated
It is hard to fit a 45 minute documentary in a few comments.
They showed some people that were indeed using AirBnB as intended, renting their place to make some money to make ends meet.
After that they featured a student that worked for a management company. They were very professionally organized, they company kept talking about “sharing economy” while in reality their hosts were not sharing, most of them are not even living near Amsterdam, some of them even live in China or the US.
The second problem is the “money to the economy” lie. Since the investors do not live in the city, the rent does not go into the economy. Only the pubs, coffee shops and restaurants profit. But a lot of business start to disappear, like hairdressers and others that are used by people that live there.
They showed how classic Amsterdam neighborhoods were taken over by investors, all listing on AirBnB. There is no more housing for the people working in Amsterdam. The Dutch constitution says that people should be able to live near to where they work. But AirBnB is driving up the prices. AirBnB used to be illegal in Amsterdam, the city has legalized AirBnB in return for taxcollection and some limitations. AirBnB is paying tax, but not enforcing the agreed limitations.
They also show people that rented a room in a house long term, where the landlord suddenly decided to start renting spare rooms trough AirBnB. So suddenly the lang term renters have to share their space with new strangers every few days.
Every property that rents more than 60 days per year, or to more than 4 people at the same time, without commercial license is considered an illegal hotel. You can get a commercial license for a B&B, but the owner has to live on the property.
People are hiring private investigators and collecting evidence themselves, to send to the city to have them shut down.
The city installed teams to investigate these places, together with the police and fire inspection, and shutdown the illegal hotels. A host can face huge fines, if they run an illegal hotel that does not apply to the safety standards. But collecting evidence and checking every place takes a lot of time.
AirBnB could implement easy checks in their software to prevent hosts from breaking rules, but they do not want to.
AirBnB is a company with just 1 goal, make as much money as possible. They do not care if host are listing illegally, they are only interested in getting as much bookings as possible.
Chris, I appreciate you taking the time to set this out. I’m not beating myself up over this personally as I live in my property and, whereas the income has become an important strand of my income mix that allows me to keep my kids’ roof over their heads for now at least, following some big changes in our lives and my work this past year, I’m not in the category of remote landlord. But yes, it’s become a broad church. Like anything though there are interest groups on the other side - the corporate hotel sector has some very big players - who are agitating and lobbying too … and maybe financing films? Who knows …
Well the problem is that that is part of the AirBnB strategy. They act as if they are the Robin Hood, taking the money from the rich corporate hotels, giving it to the little private guy that needs the money to make ends meet.
In reality the big corporate hotels in cities like Amsterdam hardly notice the impact of AirBnB. The small private owned hotels and existing B&B’s are getting hurt and loosing money, unless they also list on AirBnB.
The other point is that AirBnB does increase the tourism. Amsterdam got a lot busier, mostly with drunken and stoned tourists and hundreds of bachelor parties looking for the red light district, puking and pissing everywhere. Americans can compare it with 365 days a year spring break.