In response to Hotels vs. Airbnb: Let the Battle Begin, I wrote the following:
Although we have had some good, and even excellent, experiences via VRBO, I prefer hotels, inns and B&B's. On trips, I have no interest in cooking or cleaning up after myself. Travel for me is about pleasure, relaxation, and enjoying local experiences. It helps that we can afford the costs, and the times we opted for a short rental was for cost, either because we had less money, or because hotels seemed to offer little for their high costs. Respectively, once on our honeymoon to Italy where we rented an entire house for a week on the Italian Riviera, and another a flat in Amsterdam, situated within the canals and near a university.
I am not a big fan of such services, but what gets me annoyed is the illegality and the exposure to risk that these services create. We own our condo in a doorman building, and have entertained the idea of subletting for a year or more so we can enjoy the country and/or cities abroad. We understand the rules, that we need board approval and notification to do sublet, and both the board and we would strictly vet our tenants, but we have two illegal AirBnB sublets in our 1100 unit complex, that have essentially jumped the queue and exposed us to a variety of risks the board would never agree to. There is no such approval or vetting, no recourse if these people commit crimes or harm the building, and although the risk is low, the laxity of these services expose our communities to issues we carefully avoid.
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