African American
Related: About this forum#AirbnbWhileBlack: How Hidden Bias Shapes The Sharing Economy
Quirtina Crittenden was struggling to get a room on Airbnb. She would send a request to a host. Wait. And then get declined.
"The hosts would always come up with excuses like, 'oh, someone actually just booked it' or 'oh, some of my regulars are coming in town, and they're going to stay there,'" Crittenden said. "But I got suspicious when I would check back like days later and see that those dates were still available."
In many ways Crittenden, 23, is the target audience for AirBnb. She's young, likes to travel, and has a good paying job as a business consultant in Chicago. So she started to wonder if it had something to do with her race. Crittenden is African American, and on AirBnb, both hosts and guests are required to have their names and photos prominently displayed on their profiles.
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All the requests were exactly the same except for the names they gave their make-believe travelers. Some had African American-sounding names like Jamal or Tanisha and others had stereotypically white-sounding names like Meredith or Todd.
Luca and his colleagues found requests with African American sounding names were roughly 16 percent less likely to be accepted than their white-sounding counterparts. They found discrimination across the board: among cheap listings and expensive listings, in diverse neighborhoods and homogenous neighborhoods, and with novice hosts as well as experienced hosts. They also found that black hosts were also less likely to accept requests from guests with African American-sounding names than with white-sounding ones.
Luca and his colleagues found hosts pay a price for their biaswhen hosts rejected a black guest, they only found a replacement about a third of the time. In a separate study, Luca and his colleagues have found that guests discriminate, too, and black hosts earn less money on their properties on Airbnb.
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Can't say this is too terribly surprising. Much bias I personally see isn't blatant or in your face, it is much more subtle, always bubbling just beneath the surface.
Person 2713
(3,263 posts)we can expect to be treated as simply generic faceless hotel guests.
Names bring all kinds of stereotypes but hotels accept all kinds of credit cards and live off reputations
Plus once you arrived at an Airbnb there could be issues / bad attitude too and then you are stuck and brings down your travel experience .
With hotels you can get a resolve that incorporates more than one individual if there is a problem and if there is a room available online , little chance the hotel will stop the reservation process after you enter your name!
Scootaloo
(25,699 posts)What I've been reading is that the whole operation is a fairly sleazy way to skirt around rules and regulations that would be in place for actual hosteling businesses or leasing agreements, so the idea that black people get the shaft from it is no surprise at all.
Chakab
(1,727 posts)but they are also undercutting established businesses.
They should have to follow the same anti-discrimination laws as any hotel.
msongs
(67,199 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)I might in my 14 ft trailer outside, but it doesnt have a bathroom so prob wouldnt qualify. No way am I letting strangers into my house to use my kitchen or bathroom.
NWCorona
(8,541 posts)dangin
(148 posts)Is what we used. Hands down, the worst guests were single, straight, white males, with no females.
Chakab
(1,727 posts)There are always headaches.