Airbnb co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer Nathan Blecharczyk recently hosted members of the European Parliament to talk about updating European Union rules to help address hosting issues.
According to a company blog post published Monday (June 6), the discussions centered around how Airbnb and EU leaders can work on building sustainable tourism models that both help locals and protect communities.
This comes as many citizens have been unable to benefit from the economic opportunities of home sharing, as local rules have been cumbersome and unfriendly, reportedly favoring larger players instead.
“Travel on Airbnb contributed €19 billion to the EU economy before the pandemic, benefiting Hosts and the communities they call home,” Blecharczyk said. “The majority of Hosts are everyday families and new EU rules on hosting can help more Europeans benefit from home sharing, whilst ensuring that local governments have the tools they need to limit unwanted activity by property speculators. We look forward to continuing our dialogue with the EU institutions on these matters.”
The report noted that Airbnb travel often generates economic, cultural and community benefits in the EU. Additionally, the EU has been looking into proposals for more harmonic EU-wide rules, which could offer governments more tools to clamp down on spectators and fight against overtourism.
PYMNTS wrote recently that Airbnb would not continue listing domestic rentals in China because of factors like cost and competition, with the pandemic making those trends worse and the lack of travel impacting the company.
See also: Airbnb to End Domestic Listings in China, Citing Cost, Competition
Instead, outbound travel in China seemed to be a bigger opportunity for Airbnb, so the company plans to do more work in that arena. According to the report, there haven’t been many instances of overlap between the outbound and domestic businesses.
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