Private lodging service Airbnb vowed to work with local communities and pay its "fair share" of hotel and tourism taxes.
Photo by Raysonho/cc
SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 11 (UPI) -- Private lodging service Airbnb vowed Thursday to work with local communities and pay its "fair share" of taxes, one week after company executives threatened to mobilize its users to beat back restrictive short-term rental rules nationwide.
Chief Executive Officer Brian Chesky outlined a renewed spirit of cooperation in its Airbnb Community Compact, including "treating every city personally and helping ensure our community pays its fair share of hotel and tourist taxes."
The company also said it will share data about hosts and guests who use their services to aid in the development of local home-sharing policies and release annual reports with data about the rentals.
"This compact is just one step we are taking to help the cities that our hosts and guests call home," Chesky said. "We also understand that it will take time to implement these provisions, as we go city by city. However, we believe the community compact will help provide a series of tangible actions that we can take to ensure home sharing makes communities around the world even stronger."
The consolatory tone comes after the company defeated San Francisco's Proposition F, aimed at tightly regulating short-term rentals in the city. Airbnb spent more than $8 million fighting the measure and raised a slew of billboards many locals saw as offensive. The company later apologized.
After the referendum, Chris Lehane, a Washington insider who is now Airbnb's head of global policy and public affairs, framed the Prop F victory as a win for the middle class. He vowed to organize voting blocs in cities where the company operates and create "clubs" of Airbnb home-shares, like local unions.
"Cities recognize where the world is going, right, they understand that you're either going to go forward or you're going to go backward," he said. "They understand that in a time of economic inequality, this is a question of whose side are you on: Do you want to be on the side of the middle class, or do you want to be opposed to the middle class?"
The tone didn't sit well with some San Francisco lawmakers, who saw it as combative and disingenuous.
"If Airbnb is not at least somewhat flexible on their part, cities will just dig in their heels," said Rob Atkinson, president of the Washington, D.C., based think tank Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.
