SHORT-TERM RENTAL
The Accommodating
CEO
NEW YORK CITY THROTTLED DOWN AIRBNB . HAS IT MADE A DIFFERENCE ?
By DAVID EISEN
NEW YORK — He appeared against a blue screen . Brian Chesky , the short-term rental wunderkind who founded Airbnb at the age of 27 and now commands a company with a market cap of more than $ 82 billion . From air mattresses to riches .
Chesky , remote , was one of the featured speakers at the Skift Global Forum and the irony of him absent on stage was not lost on the audience . In January of 2022 , New York City adopted Local Law 18 , which , among other things , requires short-term rental hosts to register with the Mayor ’ s Office of Special Enforcement ( OSE ) and prohibits platforms , like Airbnb , from processing transactions for unregistered short-term rentals . Enforcement began in September 2023 and only applies to properties rented for less than 30 days . Other parts of the law include that no more than two paying guests can stay in a short-term rental at a time and that hosts be physically present while their properties are being rented .
It was a quasi-death knell for STRs and a boon for hotel owners , if you believe Chesky , when prompted in conversation with Rafat Ali , founder of Skift . “ There ’ s been this giant question : ‘ What happens when you ban Airbnb in the city ?’” Chesky said . Since Airbnb ’ s inception , there had been no answer because there was no such ordinance . As Chesky put it , New York City decided to play out the experiment and now , a year in , there is data — a response to the question .
“ There ’ s two results , one expected , one unexpected ,” he said . Of the former , Chesky said that because there were no longer Airbnbs on a short-term basis , the only game in town flipped back to hotels , which were able to raise their rates with less lodging supply and competition . Chesky
24 hotelsmag . com Oct / Nov 2024