Airbnb Prunes Illegal Short-Term Rental Listings in Quebec After Fire

25.08.2023 - 13:54 / skift.com / Dennis Schaal

Airbnb is removing listings that haven’t received a permit from the government of Quebec following a fatal fire in Montreal in a building that was located in a section of the city where authorities barred short-term rentals.

Authorities removed four bodies from the historic building in Old Montreal, and three people were missing. Some of the victims had been Airbnb renters in the building.

Airbnb wrote a letter to the province’s tourism minister vowing to remove listings that didn’t have governmental permits, require new listings to provide a permit number, and give the Quebec government access to an Airbnb portal so provincial authorities might better enforce local regulations.

Policymakers at Airbnb or other platforms face a mixed bag of regulatory and enforcement activities in assorted geographies around the world.

Thus, Airbnb is now removing illegal listings in Quebec after a headline-grabbing fatal incident. In Palma, the capital of the Balearic Islands in Spain, the holiday destination had nearly 2,000 rentals listed on Airbnb, vastly exceeding the roughly 620 permits, according to a published report.

“For years, Airbnb has partnered with governments to legitimize home sharing and support compliance, including by launching the City Portal tool for governments, and we continue to be responsive and work in good faith to ensure new and existing regulations work for all stakeholders,” said an Airbnb spokesperson.

But without the Montreal-like flashpoint, in the Balearic Islands, it is very possible to stay at these illegal rentals.

Meanwhile, in New York City a July deadline looms for when both hosts and platforms would be fined for stays where the host is not present in the unit.

Tourism and finance officials traveled to Brussels a little more than a year ago to lobby European Union officials to bar stays at illegal rentals in the Balearic Islands.

Roman Townsend, managing director of travel technology public relations firm Belvera Partners, which is based in the Balearic Islands, thinks politics is at play as the incumbent socialist government wants to appeal to a segment of the populace that believes that mass tourism is destroying the islands.

Measures under consideration, Townsend said, go beyond curbing Airbnb, such as barring non-residents from purchasing property in Mallorca and putting public money to work to purchase three-star hotels with the aim of halting visits from low-end or price-sensitive tourists.

“Nonetheless we should take what’s being said over the coming weeks with a pinch of salt, as the regional president has had eight years to introduce the measures talked of now but somehow has not done so,” Townsend said. “They´ll likely tone this down post-elections as they almost