Airbnb, the world’s largest online marketplace for short-term rentals of private residences, was supposed to remove the illegal private residence entries without registration numbers from its website on June 15 following the issuance of a notice from Japan Tourism Agency. However, it brought forward the deletion exercise without prior notice on June 2.
Airbnb had originally asked the existing private residence hosts on their website to fill in their registration or license numbers under the Private Lodging Business Act, Inns and Hotels Act or special deregulatory zone for private lodging rental scheme before June 14.
According to the official statistics released by Airbnb, the online portal had about 62,000 listings as of February 2018. Of all the cities, Tokyo accounted for approximately 21,200 entries while Osaka and Kyoto had around 14,300 and 6,200 listings respectively.
Airbnb which conducted the deletion on June 2, removed about 40,000 entries which amounted to 80 percent of its database. This scale of deletion is unheard of in the world.
With a sharp decline in the number of private residences available for rental on Airbnb following the deletion, this has created the “Airbnb Bubble” i.e. a spike in the number of reservations for the authorized hotels, inns and simple lodging facilities still remaining on the website.
Also see: Airbnb immediately takes action, deleting all illegal private residences for rent
