AirBnb can be really useful sometimes

In the past several years I've seen a number of posts attacking the company AirBnb, which is fine, but often they go further and attack the general concept of short-term housing rental outside of hotels. These posts have struck me as oblivious at best, and sometimes even callously indifferent. I rarely hear arguments in favor of short-term housing rental outside of travel industry promotion, so I wanted to give my entirely uncompensated argument for why I like them.

This is not an argument about the merits of AirBnb or any other company, or of tourism in general. It's about why short-term housing rental should be allowed wherever hotels, long-term rentals and vacation home ownership are allowed, and should not be restricted as a kludge to limit tourism overall.

I've stayed in plenty of hotels, inns, bed and breakfasts and youth hostels, and they can be great, but they're not always enough. Sometimes there simply are not enough hotels in a town, or a neighborhood.

Let's use the city of Northampton, Massachusetts as an example. There is exactly one hotel in downtown Northampton: the Hotel Northampton, a classic institution, almost a century old, with 106 rooms. That's a tiny amount for a small city with a college, a hospital and a large number of tourist attractions. There are at least two smaller hotels, three motels and a bed and breakfast within the city limits, as well as six across the river in Hadley and five in Amherst.

You could say that the people who can't afford the Hotel Northampton simply pay with longer trip times. That's not fair to begin with, but beyond that, only four of the other hotels are within a comfortable walk of the city center and Smith College. I believe they are all on bus routes, but those buses do not always run frequently, and there are some times when no buses run at all, such as early Sunday morning. Many of the motels, particularly in Hadley, are in areas that are dangerous and hostile to pedestrians.

Thus the price structure of the hotels discriminates against people who pay less, not just by imposing a time penalty and the cost of taxis when buses are not running, but by imposing a higher risk of death or injury.

If we look at AirBnb, there are rooms and apartments for rent near downtown, but they're available at rates comparable to the motels in Hadley, or even cheaper. No cost penalty, no time penalty, no car or taxi or extra bus trip required.

There are some towns that have no hotels at all. If someone wants to visit those towns, the only hotel may be miles away, with no transit at convenient times. But those towns may have a few short-term rentals where a visitor may even be able to arrive by transit and walk to their destinations.

Another benefit I've gotten from short term rentals is the experience of staying in a house or apartment that's integrated into a residential neighborhood. Sometimes it can be nice to stay in a hotel in a commercial or entertainment district, but those districts are often empty on weekends.

Many short-term rentals are in architecturally interesting places, and staying there overnight can give visitors a better opportunity to appreciate them. It can also allow visitors to live like locals in ways that hotels don't offer.

There are costs and risks to short term rentals. I don't want to dismiss them. I'm just frustrated with discussions of short term rentals that talk exclusively about the downsides without mentioning the reasons why people might choose them over hotels, or why they might even help people make trips that wouldn't otherwise be possible.

I'm often surprised when people don't mention these positive aspects. Have they never enjoyed staying in a quirky apartment in a quiet neighborhood and shopping with locals? Have they never been stuck in some shitty motel in a strip mall in the middle of nowhere, where they can't get to a restaurant without driving? Or paying through the nose to get snotty treatment from a stuck-up desk clerk at a downtown motel in an office district that's deserted on a Sunday night?