Bed & Breakfast News Christmas 2016 (#43) | Page 12

12 | Bed & Breakfast News | Christmas 2016

Trying to level
the playing-field
with Airbnb
Longstanding members and regular readers
will know that the Association has been
campaigning since 2012 on the unfairness
of our members being held to comply
with some 140 rules, regulations and
requirements whilst our newest commercial
competitors on “peer-to-peer platforms”
like Airbnb go unchecked and (in effect)
unregulated (though the rules do apply to
them too, but are not checked by Airbnb
and are not enforced by regulators).
We think it is a huge disadvantage to
traditional B&Bs, who comply with
regulations and pay taxes, to be undercut
by those who fail to do either – and to be
allowed to do so by complacent policymakers
and sleepy regulators. No wonder Airbnb
grew by a further 73% last year, and now has
twice as many listings in London alone as
there are B&Bs in the whole of the UK!
Some might say that any business could
grow if unfettered by the boring requirement
to make themselves safe for consumers.
Those consumers, it seems, are surprised
when they find they are unprotected as for example, were Jess Paterson and
her friends, who were badly injured in an
Airbnb rental in Brighton when the balcony
collapsed. Airbnb, of course, denied any
liability. Jess Paterson said of Airbnb:
“It’s like they don’t care. They haven’t
provided us with anything: acknowledgement,
apology, financial support for our ongoing
needs. I sometimes get a bit depressed
thinking of what’s happened and what
might have happened,” she added.

The flat had been rented for a 30th
birthday celebration in July, and guests
at the party used the balcony throughout
the night.
It collapsed just before midnight, with
three of the four injured falling two
storeys to basement level.
The fourth fell to street level and was
impaled through the torso, narrowly
missing his vital organs. All four required
emergency surgery. Since the accident
one of the victims has been unable to
work, and two of them had to cancel
their wedding and honeymoon.
Airbnb said safety is its “number one
priority” and that problems like this are
“incredibly rare”, and said “As soon as
we were aware of the incident, we reached
out to the guest to provide support”, but
it refused to comment further on the
basis that this is an ongoing case.
The victims’ solicitor said the website
has refused requests to provide financial
assistance.