The relaxation of regulations meaning that private homeowners can list their properties on the Airbnb website is good news – not just for the landlords involved, but for the tourism industry and the economy. Many travellers prefer an apartment to a hotel room, so these properties add to the mix of options available to them when they visit.
The adoption of Airbnb also fits in with the UAE’s embrace of disruptive technologies and the innovation behind them.
Airbnb is not doing anything new – websites offering short-term rentals on apartments and houses have been around for a long time. What Airbnb has done is make the process simple, offering enhanced search functions and enabling renters and owners to rate their experience to inform other users.
When it comes to innovation, it’s not always about inventing a new type of wheel, it can be about adding the tyre that makes the wheel function smoothly and more efficiently.
