Japan - latest battleground in Airbnb home-sharing war
Sarah Takeda thought she had a good little business renting a traditional tatami-mat room in her house on Airbnb. But she and other hosts in Japan are learning the hard way that the home-sharing site’s fastest-growing market is also becoming the next flashpoint in a global battle over the sharing economy. Hoteliers are up in arms, local residents complain that outsiders are invading their neighborhoods, and Japanese officials say renting out private homes is illegal. Calls for change have reached the highest levels of government, which is mulling a revision to the rules, as Japan’s tourist numbers hit fresh records and Tokyo scrambles to build enough accommodation to host the 2020 Olympics.
But Takeda’s hosting days are over, after local officials knocked on the door of her home in a quaint seaside town near the capital. They quizzed her on minute details of the business, such as asking how she cleaned sheets for guest futons, Takeda said. She was later threatened with a 30,000 yen ($280) fine or six months in jail if she kept renting. “I had no idea Airbnb was against the law when I was running it,” said Takeda, a pseudonym, who has since stopped renting the straw mat room for about 3,000 yen a night. “They said some of the neighbors had commented that many foreigners were coming to our house.”
Japan isn’t alone. Fights over Airbnb have erupted in Spain, France, Germany and even in San Francisco, where the company is based, largely over rising real estate prices and noise complaints. Still, Japan is particularly fertile territory for home sharing with visitor numbers soaring as a drop in the yen makes a once-notoriously expensive country a bit more affordable. Last year, Japan drew some 19.7 million visitors, up 47 percent from a year earlier, straining hotel occupancy rates and highlighting Tokyo’s accommodation problem. — AFP