Competition from hotels is just one side of the issue.
The other side is safety and security. I lived in a building next to a hostel for a year and a half. It was well maintained and the guests were regulated. Never had any complaints about the guests. On the other hand, my next door neighbor rented out his condo AirBnB style for a few months. It was obnoxious, the owner was remote and the guests were never regulated. The common areas were trashed, the guests were loud, and none of it mattered because they only had to deal with the consequences for a short term.
The fact of the matter is: there needs to be a distinction in regulation between short term and long term housing. As much as I am a fan of startups that make life convenient, the unregulated nature of AirBnB makes life difficult for anyone else not in the exchange. That's what hotels are for, to abstract that difficulty so that it only involves those within the boundaries of the exchange: the guests, the owners, and the service.
The other side is safety and security. I lived in a building next to a hostel for a year and a half. It was well maintained and the guests were regulated. Never had any complaints about the guests. On the other hand, my next door neighbor rented out his condo AirBnB style for a few months. It was obnoxious, the owner was remote and the guests were never regulated. The common areas were trashed, the guests were loud, and none of it mattered because they only had to deal with the consequences for a short term.
The fact of the matter is: there needs to be a distinction in regulation between short term and long term housing. As much as I am a fan of startups that make life convenient, the unregulated nature of AirBnB makes life difficult for anyone else not in the exchange. That's what hotels are for, to abstract that difficulty so that it only involves those within the boundaries of the exchange: the guests, the owners, and the service.