Airbnb CEO: NYC hotels will get more expensive after short-term rental crackdown

I seriously doubt hotels will get more expensive as they still have to compete with each other. I would say Airbnb has never had any influence on hotel pricing in NYC.<p>That being said, I tried Airbnb in NY a few times and it was absolutely disgusting. In most places Airbnbs will be a bit dirtier than a hotel but in NY it wasn&#x27;t even close. Rats, cockroaches, showers that don&#x27;t drain, grime everywhere... After a few experiences like that I was out. Hotels in NY offer a <i>much</i> better experience.

Wow, some of the armchair analyses here are just so lacking in understanding beyond people&#x27;s own individual experiences (&quot;My AirBnB was dirty!&quot;):<p>1. <i>Of course</i> hotels will get more expensive. This is basic supply and demand at work. As another poster commented, the total amount of AirBnB inventory in NYC was material. Saying &quot;hotels still have to compete with each other&quot; is just missing the absolute basics of Micro-econ 101.<p>2. Of course, as others have posted, the whole point of these AirBnB crackdowns is to make more long term rentals affordable. It&#x27;s really just about shifting supply from STR to LTR, so you&#x27;d expect prices to go up in one market and down in the other.<p>3. Regarding AirBnB, &quot;It might be cheaper, but you will wish you spent the extra bucks&quot; has to be the most eye-rolling comment I saw. Many people simply don&#x27;t have &quot;extra bucks&quot; lying around. I certainly remember when I was younger thinking there were many trips I just wouldn&#x27;t have gone on without AirBnB. It&#x27;s the same reason budget airlines are so popular - people know they suck, but especially in a city like NYC the expectation is you are hardly spending any time in your room besides sleeping in the first place, so people are willing to accept the tradeoff. Plus, access to a kitchen can by <i>huge</i> in terms of cost savings while in NYC.

The stories I have read over the years had kept me from trying Airbnb. Maybe I am too risk averse, but if I spend money and time on vacation, leaving all that up to some unknown shady host to mess up and then having to fight with Airbnb support sounds not enjoyable at all. I&#x27;d rather be surprised by fun and enjoyable things.<p>&gt; Hyatt announced a new vacation rental platform, Homes &amp; Hideaways by World of Hyatt, the same day Chesky was speaking.<p>That&#x27;s one good thing is that it keeps hotels on their toes and forced them to play in that market as well.<p>&gt; Further, IHG is even offering 10,000 IHG One Rewards points to travelers who can prove their New York City Airbnb reservation was canceled in light of the new city policy.<p>That sounds like an interesting approach. Just the ad itself is enough to turn heads. 10k points is not a huge amount but might still get a number of customers. When a competitor mistreats a customer, and you&#x27;re the one helping them solve their issue, they&#x27;ll remember that forever.

It&#x27;s funny Brian compares NYC to Paris. If there is one thing the French love is to create rules and regulations. I think the team in Paris realized, probably early on, they could work with the marie or against the marie. And work with some well-meaning regulations. Parisians were concerned about affordability and flat supply early on with Airbnb, VRBO, and PaP. NYC city hall was not and figured the market would sort itself out. Year after year the calls were growing louder about landlords evicting tenants for short term tenants, and the council continued to ignore it. People are angry, they vote, and if you piss them off long enough they can do leverage it in unexpected ways.<p>I was an early proponent of Airbnb, when it was just geeks renting their flats out for the weekend. But growth meant it had to take over more housing. Taking it away from residents and turning it over to tourists. I wanted it to &quot;Live like a local&quot; but when you have entire buildings dedicated to short term rentals none of the locals are around.

I read the story, and there&#x27;s nothing in here that&#x27;s surprising; per the headline, the laws of supply and demand still hold. The new regulations in NYC were about reducing the price of long-term housing, not short-term stays.

&quot;The measure is believed to have eliminated as many as 15,000 — or about 70% — of Airbnb&#x27;s listings in New York City, Wired reported using data from housing advocacy group Inside Airbnb.&quot;<p>I hope this means lower rent for New Yorkers, 15,000 apartments possibly going back to the rental market seems like something positive.

There is no mention of the long term rental market and how this may affect it, which feels like a glaring omission.

Well AirBnb banning in New York is alot different than in other cities just by virtue of the type of accommodations that are available in New York.<p>If you ask most people why they airbnb over hotels they say its because I can take my family or group of friends to an airbnb, where as in a hotel we&#x27;d need to get 4-5 rooms.<p>In most other cities you can trivially find 5 bedroom places that fit that bill. In New York I&#x27;m not sure you can find alot of 5 or 6 bedroom places, especially in Manhattan.<p>So airbnb&#x27;s main draw for most people just isn&#x27;t available in New York in a way that it would be in most other large cities.<p>Which means you&#x27;d expect alot less people to use airbnb over a hotel in New York.

oh no ;_;<p>I&#x27;ll be thinking of the hotel customers when i&#x27;m paying my rent.

He’s whistling past the graveyard, as I suppose he should be. As others have commented, Airbnb was never enough to move the needle on hotel prices in NY anyway.<p>But they did move the needle on quality of life for people who live there, which is whom the government represents. Historically it’s the visitors who get soaked everywhere (car rental fees at airport, hotel visitor taxes and of course Cheesecake Factory in Times Square). The sheer mass of these charges in NY are another reason why Airbnb had no impact on costs.

I&#x27;m shocked that the CEO of Airbnb would go out and try to get consumers angry about a policy which negatively impacts his business.

Yes, cracking down on the unlicensed, uninsured black market in hotel rooms will raise the price of an average stay. But there are obvious benefits that the Airbnb CEO isn&#x27;t considering.<p>I feel hypocritical, because with a young child Airbnb is awesome for trips. We get space and separate rooms. But I understand the strain it&#x27;s putting on our system (I&#x27;m Canadian).

Yeah and on the flipside the price of rent will go down.<p>A weird quirk of America is that we are so <i>obsessed</i> with tourism that we are willing to sacrifice quality of life for people who live in one place, for the benefit of a bunch of people who visit for 3-4 days.<p>This is the peak of that thinking.

Cool, now do housing costs for the people living there (and, theoretically, the ones deciding how their own city should be regulated).<p>Backlash was never about hotel prices, it was always about the externalities like rampant real estate speculation driving up housing costs and hollowing out neighborhoods for a quick buck. The corporate economic pollution.<p>Turns out there&#x27;s a certain point where people want their quality of life. Ignoring this angle is completely disingenuous and tone deaf, but hey, if your argument can&#x27;t stand on the merits, throw in a fear-mongering distraction. CEO-speak 101.

Well I’ll be sure to think about that as I am having the first full night of sleep that isn’t interrupted by French tourists buzzing every door in the building at 3AM every night.

OTOH fewer people will show up to listings for non-existent locations or locations that aren&#x27;t owned by the fraud who listed it.

The hotels have always been overpriced, especially in New York City with all of the fees and extra taxes. New York City has nearly destroyed Uber and other ride sharing services in favor of taxis, and they will do the same to Airbnb to satisfy the hotels. Protectionism by another name.

Sounds like this will promote growth of new hotel construction&#x2F;expansion. Great!

By the same logic rents will go down, so thanks for the crackdown.

Rent goes down, though, which seems good in general.

In other words, all these airbnb units will become long term rentals. Thus, residents of the city will now be able to afford to live there.

Tech CEO: Please do not stop us from making money.

I kind of wish capitalists would just be honest for once. This is bad for their specific business. Just come out and say that instead of making stuff up.