Transcript

Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia at all concerned. · STR Unpacked

Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short-term rental bulletin on the 1st of May. 19 days out from the biggest short-term regulation in EU history and Airbnb itself is publicly worried it won't work. So on the 20th of May, not long now, the new EU regulation kicks in across all 27 member states. Every host needs a registration number, platforms have to verify them and pipe monthly booking data to the national authorities. It's the data backbone of the EU and the EU has spent two years building this. yesterday, Emlex reported that Booking.com, Airbnb and Expedia are openly concerned the regulation won't be effective. Why do they think this? They think this because member states are running late on the cross-border registration system that the whole thing depends on. So Spain and Italy are already behind, France to be honest is scrambling a bit and Poland hasn't even passed it into law. So here's what I think is interesting. The platforms have spent years lobbying against this regulation and now they're worried it'll fail. Why? Because if the system breaks on day one, then they themselves become the de facto regulators having to decide. which listings to block while governments figure out their portals. That's the worst outcome for them. Liability without any form of clarity. Three weeks to go. Watch the gap in between law and infrastructure. Hopefully close, but we'll see. Thank you for watching and I'll see you next week.