I could have probably rented our extra bedroom in Monterey for $150 per night this past weekend during the Pebble Beach AT&T Pro Am golf tournament. There are other Monterey properties renting rooms and entire houses for stays next weekend on Airbnb.com. Rentals run from $60 per night in Seaside including two Monterey Bay Aquarium ticket passes to a $239 per night luxury yacht in Monterey Bay to $1,000 per night for an entire home in the woods of Carmel Highlands.

I could rent my spare bedroom, but it would be illegal for me to sign up the room on Airbnb.com and take payment without the proper Monterey city licensing for lodging.

There are 41 Airbnb.com results for Monterey rentals next weekend. Are all these rental listings on airbnb.com compliant with local lodging retailer regulations and laws?

Airbnb.com states on its home pages there are nearly 36,000 cities globally with property listings.

How do you become a lodging host on airbnb.com?

Who can host on Airbnb?

Almost anyone can be a host! It’s free to sign up and to list your space. The listings available on the site are as diverse as the hosts who list them, so you can post airbeds in apartments, entire houses, rooms in bed-and-breakfasts, hotel rooms, tree houses in the woods, boats on the water, or enchanted castles. The list goes on and on! Find out more about our room types.

Since almost anyone can be a host, it is important to learn how to play it safe on Airbnb in our Trust & Safety Center.

https://www.airbnb.com/help/question/hosting/18 

Amsterdam and New York are popular locations for Airbnb and other peer-to-peer room/apartment/house/boat stay rentals.

News stories about problems associated with hosts listing properties for rent on sites like Airbnb.com came to my attention with an article about Amsterdam and Airbnb.com from website TheNextWeb.com:

Airbnb could be banned in Amsterdam: Local authorities are now hunting for illegal hotels [UPDATED] (Feb 2, 2013) – TheNextWeb.com.

The original article on TheNextWeb.com came out February 2 and was disputed by both the Amsterdam city government and airbnb.com statements. Then TheNextWeb.com published a follow-up article in response to the criticism from Amsterdam government officials.

Amsterdam doesn’t ‘ban’ AirBnB but says renting out without a permit is illegal. Do you have a permit? (Feb 7, 2013) – TheNextWeb.com.

I found the Amsterdam articles to be interesting reads. Amsterdam has 4,191 listings on Airbnb and many of these apartments are being rented illegally without proper lodging permits.

New York Times published a story in December 2012 about airbnb.com rentals in New York City causing problems for landlords and renters when neighbors complain about strangers living in the apartment buildings. The fines can be heavy.

A Warning for Hosts of Airbnb Travelers – Ron Lieber – New York Times (December 1, 2012).

For me personally, the two summers I spent 1997 and 1998 in Ireland, Northern Ireland and Scotland living in B&B houses turned me on to hotel travel. Engaging locals is an important part of travel, yet I like the option of being able to disengage conversations and step away at my leisure without being rude. That is often not so easy when you are staying in someone else’s home with them.

Have sites like airbnb.com worked for you as a consumer or host?

Ric Garrido, writer and owner of Loyalty Traveler, shares news and views on hotels, hotel loyalty programs and vacation destinations for frequent guests. You can follow Loyalty Traveler on Twitter and Facebook and RSS feed.

Airfares hit record highs in 2012. Car rental rates have steadily climbed despite high gas prices. Yet, hotels in September 2012 have an average daily rate at $105.10 in the U.S. and still lag slightly behind their September 2008 peak rates of $107.71.

2007 Q3 saw a peak in airline passenger travel with 203 million flyers. Four years later in 2011 Q3 the airline passenger level is 4% lower than 2007 peak. Average airfares in 2012 Q1 were the highest in eight years.

Car rental revenues in 2011 were the highest in 11 years and increased 8.8% over 2010 rates. There were 1.8 million rental cars in service in the US in 2011. Monthly average revenue per car was $1,060.

The point of the HotelNewsNow article with all this comparative data is to imply hotels should be able to increase room rates and get more money from consumers who obviously are willing to pay more for airfare and car rentals.

Sounds like a leisure traveler squeeze to me.

In 2012 I watched rates go through the ceiling in San Francisco, New York, Miami, Hawaii and I have to think that with corporate profits going up and middle class income going down, many leisure travelers are still facing the fiscal cliff of reduced vacation affordability.

That is why I think it is even more important as we move into 2013 to know where the deals are and how to save money on the key travel vacation components of hotels, airfare and rental cars.

This TravelPulse article indicates Europe may be where the hotel travel bargains are found in 2013.

An article by Yeoh Siew Hoon about the Hospitality Sales and Marketing Association International (HSMAI) Asia Connect conference in Singapore late August is an interesting read. The piece points out the disconnect between the rise of budget airlines in Asia coinciding with the majority of hotel development in the Asia pipeline focused on the high-end market.

The article cites a statistic that low cost air carriers in Asia currently account for 26% of all air traffic in the region and this number is predicted to rise to over 50% in the next ten years.

At the same time the majority of hotel development among 1,871 hotels (421,331 rooms) in the Asian pipeline scheduled for opening in the next three to five years are luxury hotels (25%) and Upper Upscale (27%), Upscale (31%) and Midscale/Economy 19%. Read More…