I made a similar point back on Sep 13. The difference is that B&Bs etc. were/are regulated, and at least in Britain tend to cluster together.

Before AirBnB the new owners across the street from me in a very quiet suburban neighborhood would never have considered renting rooms. (Fortunately our restrictive covenants finally put a stop to it.) Before AirBnB residents of Austin would not have had party houses opening next door.

AirBnB is one more prrof that what works on a small scale does not necessarily work well on a large scale.

Indeed.
Gites in france have their own association and work closely with the office du tourisme. Each time I have been in a gite or b&b i got an invoice.
Same goes with airbnv ?

"Inserting the trendy "Air" in front of it to signal that now you could make the bookings via internet is the only real difference."

Actually, the name is literal, an airbed on the floor of the founders' apartment rented in San Francisco for an event in the city, when all the hotels were booked, having been the genesis of the idea.


"Each time I have been in a gite or b&b i got an invoice.
Same goes with airbnv ?"

Yes, the same, you get an invoice when you book & pay and it includes the tax that's been paid by the company. At the end of the year hosts are given a statement for their income taxes.

<i>... Airbnb guests are evaluated at the end of their stays... </i>

Unfortunately, they're not evaluated by the neighbors.

Interesting replies. In the past, I asked why people rent apartments rather than hotels. Many of the replies had to do with families wanting more room than a hotel usually provides, being able to cook, etc. I don't know anything about Airbnb, so I didn't know apartments were available through such sites.

For what it's worth, I'm still not converted. I like the ease of finding a hotel that's centrally located and having pretty much all the information I need easily accessible on the website. I like the impersonality of a major hotel. I don't want to cook, but if I want coffee or hot chocolate, I just use my immersion heater.

I don't want to eat 3 meals per day, but I always have some kind of breakfast, whether it's an inexpensive hotel breakfast or an inexpensive coffee shop breakfast (if the hotel breakfast is one of those $30 types).

I have a one restaurant meal, and I often buy cheese and a roll or yogurt for the other meal. If I had three meals a day, I'd feel stuffed.

I don't do laundry when I travel, except maybe rinsing out undies in the sink. I usually check the prices for hotel laundry or dry-cleaning, and if the price isn't outrageous, I have the hotel do it.

I seldom stay at a place for more than three days, so I don't care about settling in for a longer stay. I may watch a little TV, but I generally spend my down time reading my kindle, which I always load up with good books before I go.

"bvlenci on Sep 19, 17 at 9:00am
... Airbnb guests are evaluated at the end of their stays...

Unfortunately, they're not evaluated by the neighbors."

And bad, regular tenants aren't evaluated by their neighbors either and they usually have leases and one is stuck with them as evictions are very difficult to do. So, as one who has been through a lot of painful, rental situations over many decades, if I had a choice, I'd rather see someone come and go quickly than be stuck with a bad tenant for the length of his/her lease.

Happy Travels!

Pegontheroad, you started an interesting debate. My recommendation would be for you to rent at least one apartment (price equivalent of what you would normally pay). Then compare. You will have your own experience to rely on.

We do both hotels and apartments, and most of the time renting an apartment wins every time, for space, comfort, views, location.

I like Airbnb for several reasons. Number one, we travel as a family of 5 (kids are 22, 17, 15). We need 3 hotel rooms when in Europe and that is super expensive (even if I put my son with the two girls, its still expensive). Airbnb gives us tons of space and generally 2 baths.

I only choose well rated hosts. The hosts are amazing. They send you to the local hotspots, restaurants, etc. They are always available to help, and just really great. The hosts give you there number, and they are there if you need them (lost??? can't figure out the trains?? just give them a text). We have never had a bad experience, and have used them in Italy, Germany, Copenhagen, as well as several in the states. We have upcoming stays in Barcelona and Madrid next month.

We eat out every meal, but it is nice to sometimes bring our leftovers back, or local snacks and have them in our kitchen. Having a living room is also great!!

Hope that helps!!

Exactly, guenmai. I can deal with a few nights of noise. I can't deal with a year of awfulness. The worst thing tourists can do is make noise or let strangers into the building. People living their everyday lives are capable of much worse!

You can do all the stuff you listed in an apartment, Pegontheroad. But I mostly feel the same way you do, especially in a city.

What makes you think a procession of tourists aren't going to be worse than bad neighbors? And if I lived in apartment building/condo the LAST thing I would want is a bunch of strangers with knowledge of how to access the building. Insecure, much?

"if I had a choice, I'd rather see someone come and go quickly than be stuck with a bad tenant for the length of his/her lease"

Here, here! I've got an obnoxious tenant above me now. He lets his toilet overflow every other day, drops all kinds of heavy objects on his carpetless floor, and he stomps with lead feet at 5 am, waking me almost every morning. I'd take a revolving door of Airbnb guests to get rid of this guy any day.

Re: stangers. I live in a high-rise building where the vast majority of residents order in for dinner. You need a specific security code to use the intercom for each resident and most delivery people show up without it for some reason. The building is active, so most delivery people are let it by someone feeling sorry for the guy standing at the door with no code. So much for avoiding entry by strangers.

Because tourists don't generally do stuff like vacuum up their dog poop and leave it outside of the door, or practice the clarinet at 5 am or dozens of other bad habits I've dealt with in apartments. Tourists are usually more pleasant to talk to than your shut in neighbor, or the lady that has a dramatic love life, or the young parents who have a colicky baby.

Also- there are delivery people, like bvh said, or friends, or relatives, or friends of relatives, or one night stands, or dog sitters, ....no building is secure, and you've locks on your door for that reason. And I don't know about other people, but while I could pick my neighbors out of a line up, there's enough turnover that I don't know many of them very well. I definitely don't know them well enough to ID their relatives or lovers.



I don't know if I've had a stranger steal anything. But a neighbor stole my mail. I'm going to guess a tourist would not do that either. So what, exactly, are you worried about in terms of security that isn't already an issue if you live in an apartment building?

I agree completely, marvelousmouse. One can count on visitors leaving, and on bad neighbors continuing their bad behavior forever. Even otherwise good neighbors have bad habits and pooping dogs.

So right, we are always a good guest. We rented a cottage at the beach when young and if you wanted to stay as one of her weekly renters you left the cottage better than you found it. That has always stayed with me when renting. I have a neighbour now that I wish was a weekly renter.

I live in a villa No code. Nobody enters So who cares about noise and neighbours. ?
One of the reasons i avoid sleeping in the 6th in Paris is to avoid the loud US tourists coming back to the hotel a 3 am and calling loudly their family. Or Koreans discussing in the hall about the program of next day. Or à German who was given a key to my room at midnight.

I can cope when I am in a hotel. If I had such lousy neighbours inan apartment I'd kill them all.

Some people - tourists - don't realise their neighbours might work the next day.

And I have enough money to book a hotel or I shorten my trip if my budget is insufficient.

I don't believe that the average renter of a vacation apartment is louder, ruder, or more obnoxious than the average hotel guest. If I had to guess, I would say it is probably the reverse.

I'm curious.

Are the people complaining about / predicting dreadful tourists' behaviour basing those judgements on their own behaviour as tourists?

I am with Thursday on this one. Had a group of loud Germans once renting the neighbours villa in france. If it were to happen again now that we know them better we would call the police. Noise noise noise. And they threw away fishes close to the fence thanks for the smell. Some guys have all the rights since they paid ... or they just don't care. In hotels you can get the manager to look into it. In a villa or apartment you just wait for the loud ones to depart and pray the next will be better.

Generally speaking, the idea behind AirBnB seems to the vetting. So having gone with apartments with and without the service, I'd choose AirBnB. I'd probably go that route if I were an apartment owner too.

It's kind of a closed system, with both renters and landlords being reviewed. So if you really did trash someone's place (which is pretty likely if you're obnoxious to the neighbours too, ie, a party house), then the next landlord isn't going to book you their place.

When I booked my 2 bedroom apartment in Sydney (I was up for a trade show), as I was a new user, I had to scan both sides of my driver's license and upload that along with other forms of ID as a part of creating my account. That is probably enough to put some would-be users off.

In our case - I'm sure every experience is different - but there were entertainment guides and walking maps in a specially made folder in the apartment. Showed all the local restaurants, numbers for delivery, emergency stuff. She had in there a couple of transportation passes (Sydney's Opal Card) with some value still on them and just requested that you refill them if you used them. Instructions on how the system worked. Really enjoyed the stay and reviewed her well. We'd cleaned up after ourselves and she did the same. If we'd have been loud, the other tenants would have complained to building management, they to their contact and ... as I've seen on some reviews... that came back on the renter. I'm sure it doesn't always work so well, but they seemed to have at least considered it. And I have to think like actual neighbours, most people probably aren't great big jerks like that.

On the flip side, the oversight is probably more adhoc in the various other apartment-for let-sites. We stayed in two in Moscow, and one of them, we got a call from the landlord saying we'd been playing music too loudly. (I could sort of see this misdirected concern happening in a hotel too). We explained we had no music player but we did have a sleeping baby in the room so no, we weren't playing music too loudly. Nothing came of it, but you never really know. And with apartment owners and a range of personalities and no sort of system for feedback, I could see it creating more potential problems than a hotel might.