As a traveler, Airbnb is fantastic. It drastically lowers the cost of lodging because hotels have to compete. Before Airbnb was banned in Hong Kong, you could get a decent hotel for $50-100/night and a good Airbnb for $50/night. Now with only hotels as an option, the crappiest hotel charges $130+ and any decent one will cost $200+.

As a neighbor, I absolutely hate Airbnb. I lived in a condo building popular for Airbnb. The noise, partying, strangers, residential lobby turning into a hotel lobby at 2pm became unbearable.

Ideally condo associations, not local governments, would decide whether to allow Airbnb and under what rules. The condo owners in a building would weigh the problems you mentioned against the revenue they can earn.

> Ideally condo associations, not local governments, would decide whether to allow Airbnb and under what rules.

So what does someone do who is a neighbor to a condo, who bought their house under the assumption that they would live next to a condo of regular renters decades ago, when the condo association now has no problems with their owners running essentially a hotel just without on-prem security and other staff, and so the "guests" are a continuous nuisance?

The neighbor can't really do anything in that situation: they can call the police but even if they show up every night to shut up the newest batch of drunkards it won't help as the drunkards are gone before "repeat offender/multiple-strikes" laws take effect, when the police doesn't care they can't take their own gun and shut the drunkards up on their own for the same reason even if that would be legal in their jurisdiction, they can't complain to the local government or other authorities because nothing the condo association or the individual owners do breaks the law... they can only sell their house, at a decent hit to its valuation to boot.

If there are successful airbnbs being run then perhaps the valuation has gone up.

I get it but thats the risk you run when buying into any kind of condo/apartment community. Replace airbnb with any number of other irritating things.

When you are in a condo community, you can campaign for votes and get stuff changed.

But I was talking about being a neighbor to a condo. In this case you're severely fucked and have no recourse, no way of changing things, because you're not an owner of a condo unit.

Besides, there is no such thing as a successful AirBnB, except for places that explicitly advertise themselves as a "high end boarding house" for business consultants and the likes - but that's seriously stretching the definition of what AirBnB was meant to be.

Ahh, the better example, two houses and one of the houses is being used as an Airbnb...it can definitely be a real problem in that case too. The best example to me is Palm Springs where they put in place some very strict rules, the latest being a maximum for short-term rentals (20% I think). Its the way to solve it in my opinion.

Don't make up definitions. I don't like the Airbnb model but there are definitely properties that one could classify as successful businesses all through an Airbnb / vrbo model. You might be confusing what Airbnb used to be in the early 2010s. That ship sailed a long time ago.

In spirit sure but if airbnb is essentially a hotel I can see an argument that they should be required to pay the same taxes/fees and follow the same rules that hotels are having to follow.

I generally agree with you. I was a renter - not a home owner in the condo building. Therefore, I had no voting rights.

Still doesn't make me dislike Airbnb any less as a neighbor.

> Before Airbnb was banned in Hong Kong, you could get a decent hotel for $50-100/night

Are you sure Airbnb is the only factor? Almost everything has gotten more expensive in that time period. (October 2022 to present)

I prefer hotels.

I’ve had some great AirBNB stays but I’ve had some where getting into the place was like a scene out of a spy movie or the ones where I evoke as much invisibility as I can in the stairwell because I know the other people in the building don’t want me there. People are generally polite but I don’t want to be part of somebody else’s violation of local laws, condo association rules, social norms, etc.

This is extremely market dependent. In major cities, I've switched back to hotels with good loyalty plans, Hilton is my first preference. Otherwise you're renting a sketchy place on AirBnB. Elsewhere outside of large cities it's typically a better economic choice.

There are a few Airbnb places around where I live and they aren't a problem - just not the kind of town people come to to party.

When I'm by myself I prefer a hotel. Much more convenient. Usually cheaper unless you take a room with someone and I'm not that social.

With family, Airbnb, and like options, are far better. Hotels are atrociously expensive for a family of 5. They provide facilities that you don't really need. You want to cook, have a parking space, and do laundry. Even the cheapest hotels are more expensive than an ok Airbnb and give you less space. I mean, really it's the difference between being able to go at all or not, and I appreciate that the call for less Airbnb is also the call for less tourism in general.

Are you up to date on the "Airbnb is fantastic" evaluation? Ten years ago indeed this was te best. The number of disappointments, hidden fees from hosts, hosts that appear to be independent but actually are a secret chain under the same management, and if you complain about one place they will cancel on you at the last minute on all neighbouring places, also places that are very much not clean, and for which you get very little recourse from some overworked support-representative in India... Anything that is not the best case scenario quickly descends into significant frustration. I stopped using AirBnb as of end of last year.