Home-sharing is caring

The problem

In the space of a decade, the home-sharing economy—spearheaded by Airbnb—has grown from nothing to a $50 billion a year industry. Not surprisingly, lawmakers are struggling to figure out how best to regulate this brave new world.

The problems with "vacation" rentals are well documented: fewer available properties for locals, increased rents, and a lack of community. What is less obvious is the benefits of home-sharing, particularly for people who are struggling financially.

With cities around the world passing new legislation targeting the home-sharing economy, Airbnb needed an effective way to tell their side of the story.

The solution

Airbnb Action helps people contact their local and national representatives to voice their support for Airbnb.

Given a location, Airbnb Action uses multiple third-party APIs to identify the elected representatives, from the national government down to the local district.

The application then suggests a template email which the user may choose to customise, before sending it to their representatives. The template emails are available in multiple languages and managed via a CMS.

After a successful pilot in New York, Airbnb Action was rolled out across several major international cities, including San Francisco and Barcelona.