Airbnb an exploitative corporation that should be driven out of business
Airbnb myth, a friendly stranger stays overnight in ones house and keeps one company.
AirbnB now openly threatening local communities and local municipalities, a threat to democracy.
Airbnb, like Deliveroo and Uber, a rogue company operating in an unregulated sector, operates contrary to fire regulations, local planning regulations, no insurance, no tax paid.
Airbnb is also having a damaging impact on local hotels, which actually employ people, unlike like Airbnb extracting wealth out of local economies.
In the centre of Athens, Airbnb a blight on Athens, locals are being kicked out of their apartments or being driven out by high rents and the dregs of the tourist industry Airbnb attracts.
In Athens, Airbnb seen as No 1 problem.
A couple of years ago pre-coronavirus pandemic, sitting outside a coffee shop chatting to a local, he told me how he had been threatened with violence by Airbnb clients who were abusing his apartment block, noise every night from ongoing parties, no respect by those passing through for the local community.
Airbnb should be driven out of business, as should Deliveroo and Uber. The model is the same for all three, exploitation.
To argue the alternative, faceless hotels with automated check-in, is not the answer. It is bad enough going to a supermarket, finding the tills are not manned, long queues, forced to use an automated till that rarely works.
I like to check in, it is never a problem, a friendly welcoming face.
Nor should we be welcoming ever more tourists, pre-pandemic, Athens, Barcelona, Amsterdam, Venice, were suffering major problems of over tourism.
Athens, cruise ships make the problem of over tourism even worse. Streets jam packed when a cruise shops docks, streets polluted with tour buses, and yet very little money flows into the local economy.
The future for tourism is not ever larger greedy tour companies, at their worst all-inclusive hotels attracting the dregs of the tourist industry, the future is fewer tourists, longer stay, direct booking.
We teeter on the brink of the apocalypse, rising global temperatures, floods, forest fires, more tourists, more CO2.
We face unknown pandemics. Mass tourism helped to spread coronavirus.
