Sometimes the progression of technology and society as a whole can lead to the decline of more traditional means. Companies like Uber and Airbnb can make traveling cheaper and faster.
For a college town like Auburn, where many come for town just for the weekend, Airbnb can be more convenient than a hotel for people.
There have been 110 active Airbnb hosts over the last 12 months in Auburn, according to Crystal Davis, press secretary for Airbnb.
“There have been 3,100 Airbnb guest arrivals in Auburn over the last 12 months,” Davis said. “The typical Airbnb host in Auburn shares their home 15 nights per year. The top origin cities for guest arrivals are Atlanta, Birmingham, Auburn, Nashville, Huntsville and Houston.”
Airbnb and other home-sharing services have changed how traveling works. Instead of staying in a traditional hotels, users can stay in a seemingly regular house or apartment.
According to The New York Times, the hotel industry has taken steps to combat Airbnb, primarily through passing legislation.
“Airbnb is operating a lodging industry, but it is not playing by the same rules,” said Troy Flanagan, the American Hotel and Lodging Association’s vice president for state and local government affairs, in a New York Times interview.
Todd Scholl, director of sales and marketing for Auburn Hotel, said he has not seen much of a change since Airbnb came to Auburn.
“I haven’t seen any effects from it (Airbnb). We have the premier location to Auburn University and its campus, so we have not seen any adverse effects from people not choosing us over a home or something,” Scholl said.
People buy package deals at Auburn Hotel for game days, which provides extra security for the hotel on home-game weekends.
Other hotels have not been as lucky as Auburn Hotel, according to John Wild. Wild, president of the Auburn and Opelika Tourism Bureau, has worked with hotels in the area as well as Airbnb.
“Airbnb and the home-sharing rentals are a challenge for our industry, other competing hotels and the local municipalities,” Wild said.
“Hotel competitors don’t like them since they are competition but on an unfair playing field. Airbnb and other home-sharing companies are not inspected by the city or county, don’t have the same licenses and don’t apply to the same life-safety regulations.
“The cities are challenged by them since they do not always abide by the zoning requirements in certain parts of the city. ... i.e. renting a home-share apartment in a densely populated area might be fine but not in an area with all single-family homes.”
The city’s regulations were enacted long before Airbnb came to Auburn, but the manpower it would take to strictly enforce all the zoning restrictions to Airbnb would cost a large amount of money.
“To be fair, hoteliers and our office encourage people wanting to rent their homes or apartments to follow three basic guidelines: They must be in an area which is zoned for that type of rental; they must purchase a business license; they must collect the proper tax and remit that to the state and city,” Wild said. “The current rate is 13 percent in Auburn or Opelika. This is a guest-paid tax – it is not paid by the homeowner. The problem with Airbnb, VRBO or sites like Rent Like A Champion is they defer rules and regulations to the homeowner. They don’t go as far as checking zoning, whether the person has a business license and they let the tax collecting and remitting to be on the owner.”
Airbnb and the hotels are not alway butting heads. When Hurricane Irma came through, the Auburn and Opelika Tourism Bureau used hotels to put people that were displaced from their homes.
“The stats we have received so far over the early part of the storm showed hotels increasing occupancy from 46 to 64 percent over the previous year. Wednesday, Sept. 6 was a normal day when we started to receive lots of calls from evacuees looking for accommodations. Thursday’s occupancy was 75 percent but it shot up to 96 or 97 percent the following two days, Friday and Saturday,” Wild said.
Finding people who were forced out of their homes a place to stay was their biggest priority, and it did not matter who got the business as long as families were safe. They even booked people as far away as Birmingham just to find them places to stay.
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