Accessibility of Airbnb

The United Nations estimates 1 billion people, around 15 per cent of the world’s population living with disabilities, making the world’s most substantial minority. Even though the numbers are clear concerning to disabilities, and services are becoming more accessible for all target groups including people living with disabilities, there are still gaps to fill. Travellers with disabilities are more likely to be rejected. Airbnb puts effort into making hosts aware that any forms of discrimination against disabled is regulated by international law and are committed to inclusion and respect in their nondiscrimination policy. Hosts applying for renting their apartments should be aware that any the community of the Airbnb is diverse and adapt to the regulations. However, property rights are regulating the rights of the property owner including the right of control and the freedom of exclusion. Based on these regulations the different laws are conflicting, and people with less sensitivity to the vulnerable might not feel comfortable renting or sharing their property with a person requiring high support needs and may not be positioned and experienced enough to provide those needs.

In this paper, the arguments pro and contra will be discussed whether shared economy platforms such as Airbnb should reinforce regulations for non-discriminative service, and in case of refusal of the host, examine whether the grounded reasoning is placed.

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Discrimination of travellers brings many problems the company has to deal with, including accessibility to their services. The economy-sharing, in theory, can provide access to a broader target group, as the technology allows the opportunity be accessible (e.g., screenreader enable blind people to make the website available). Accessibility is becoming a more discussed topic in design. According to Bryan Dalton (QA Digital Tester at Aerlingus Ireland) a good design ables, a lousy design disables. However, there is still hesitation of enabling an online platform to be more accessible due to the costs and fear of the unknown. Due to his experience working for working with Aerlingus to make their website available for people with visual impairments, accessibility has to be baked in in all product from the beginning of creating the user experience. This last point is in the scope of an international guideline set by the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (Section 9 subsection 2 point (h): ‘Promote the design, development, production and

distribution of accessible information and communications technologies and systems at an early stage, so that these technologies and systems become accessible at minimum cost.’)

The shared economy platform such Airbnb, the market leader in the housing segment of the sharing economy creates a convenient way for travellers to have an alternative option for hotels yet get to feel like home in a different country, and get the opportunity to live like locals. Since these services are less regulated than traditional businesses which bring problems to the table. Many functions in sharing economy are unregulated, and that can bring up some issues that traditional companies are built to avoid. The problem mostly lays on the inclusivity of the services, and whether it can be shared with everyone. On Airbnb in particular, discrimination brings questions whether it includes different kinds of guests regardless of race, disability or religious beliefs. As the service works in a way that people based on a profile picture can decide whether the traveller is eligible for the property of the host. This decision can be made without any penalty; the company leaves it without any consequences. This means that the host can refuse anyone without grounded reasoning.

In 2017, the news came that Airbnb hosts discriminate against guests who they believe to be black, and later host discrimination extended to guests with disabilities as well. An article by New York Times reports a story of a woman who was about to go on a family trip to Chicago, and she needed someone who could accommodate her with muscular dystrophy (muscular dystrophy cause the patient difficulties to walk). The traveller explained her situation to the host and mentioned her disability, instead of being helped, it scared two potential hosts off. A study conducted by Ameri et al. (2017), this was not the only occasion rejecting potential guests based on their disability. The pre-approval rate was 75% for travellers without disabilities, compared to 61% for travellers with dwarfism, 50% for travellers with blindness, 43% for travellers with cerebral palsy, and 25% for travellers with spinal cord injury.

In response to claims of discrimination, Airbnb introduced a number of measures: hosts and guests must agree to the following community commitment (Murphy, 2016): ‘I agree to treat everyone in the Airbnb community—regardless of their race, religion, national origin, ethnicity, disability, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, or age—with respect, and without judgement or bias.’ These measures emphasise the behaviour towards people living with disabilities. Their guideline consists of the rule that hosts may not decline a guest based on any actual or perceived disability, or impose any different terms or conditions based on the fact that the guest has a disability. There are different challenges people with disabilities have to face while accessing a shared economy platform according to the paper by Ameri et al. (2017). Firstly, disabled people have less access to online sharing economy platforms. The first reason can be that disabled people have less access to internet services (63.8% of disabled people in America has access to internet home). Secondly, there is they face direct discrimination and prejudice due to their condition. Thirdly our built environment does not always allow to accommodate people with physical impairments (e.g. as buildings with steps cannot provide the opportunity to move in with a wheelchair).

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The first question arises in this problem whether this is more of a legal or societal problem. This point might be a broader argument of the issue of Airbnb but taking into account how the society can be more inclusive is closely related to this topic. Excluding people with disabilities from services can lead to social exclusion in its social sense: exclusion of people with disabilities from any segment of the society is not only dangerous for the people living with disabilities but also for the culture itself, this type of exclusion wastes human-talent. A corporation that values diversity and inclusiveness recognises that people with different skills, backgrounds, experiences and attitudes can bring the variety of new ideas. Society works the best way possible if we learn different perspectives to get a deeper understanding of a problem. A society works for inclusivity implements legal requirements in the best possible way in the legislative system.

The rise of new internet-based platforms enables many service providers to intentionally or unintentionally avoid coverage by international and national legislation. To begin with, rejecting disabled guests from any shared economy platforms including Airbnb goes against the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. According to the document section 9 subsection 2 point (b) ‘ensure that private entities that offer facilities and services which are open or provided to the public take into account all aspects of accessibility for persons with disabilities’. Furthermore, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) is a civil rights law that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities in all areas of public life, including jobs, schools, transportation, and all public and private places that are open to the general public. The purpose of the law is to make sure that people with disabilities have the same rights and opportunities as everyone else. Based on Title III: Nondiscrimination on the Basis of Disability by Public Accommodations and in Commercial Facilities, prohibits private places of public accommodation from discriminating against individuals with disabilities including public accommodations include privately-owned facilities. These laws make a clear distinction between public space (subject to the regulations) and private space (outside the scope of the regulations). The sharing economy, however, blurs the distinction between public and private space, as the place of the platform itself take place in the traditionally considered private area. The question arises whether the shared economy platform can have the right to regulate something owned by the host. This creates an unclear space on what basis the legislation can be applied, and whether Airbnb is under the scope of these regulations. Legislations should be clear and adapted to the fast-changing market landscape of the sharing economy; legislation should make clear distinctions changed to online-facilitated short-term rentals that fit the needs of their particular localities. If laws can be broken, they will be broken: Airbnb has the responsibility to make sure to reinforce that all their services follow international and regional legislation. Recently implemented a detailed guideline of their website so called Airbnb’s Nondiscrimination Policy: Commitment to Inclusion and Respect is the first to step for host reconsidering whether they can live up to all requirements set by the company when applying to become a host. There can be still improvements to be made, as it is still not clarified how Airbnb plans to reinforce these and set strict consequences for breaking these guidelines.

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There is still a stigma for people different from us which comes from human nature: according to Newcomb’s theory of social attraction. Based on this theory ‘birds of a feather flock together’: we instinctively feel safer with those who share similar values, attitudes, race etc. It is the responsibility of the people in the society to change this stigma, and work forward to a more inclusive community. People with less sensitivity to the vulnerable might not feel comfortable renting or sharing their property with a person requiring high support needs, and may not be positioned and experienced enough to provide those needs. If people in the society are not sensitive enough to find a way to live up to these high support needs and include people instead of excluding them, they will choose to ban because of the fear of unknown. As regulations do not adapt to the fast-changing market landscape of the sharing economy, and Airbnb did not set clear consequences how to reinforce their policy, hosts can easily find a way out of deciding how they would like to let in their apartment if they can provide any grounded reasoning without including any argument conflicting with discriminative laws.

Lawful discrimination is when the tenant believes that the person renting out the apartment will not look after the property properly due to his circumstances. The anti-discrimination legislation is not there to force to rent the property to someone considered to deteriorate the quality of the property. If there is grounded reasoning for it, and the argument is not based on prejudice (e.g. the built environment does not make the property accessible for disabled people). If these barriers cannot be taken away, or only by making physical changes to the building, they might make their decision on rejecting a disabled guest. The infrastructure of most cities did not adapt yet to the policies helping disabled people finding the accommodations fitting their needs. For instance, according to the newspaper in Hungary out of 4000 apartments, only 33 meets the requirements of a person with a wheelchair due to the layout of bathrooms.

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Even though laws are conflicting what is lawful when letting in someone in private property, Airbnb has the responsibility to make sure to reinforce that all their services follow international and regional legislation. I believe that the scope of this problem is more of a societal than a legal question. A society promoting social inclusion which understood as a process by which efforts are made to ensure equal opportunities for all, regardless of their background, so that they can achieve their full potential in life. The concept of full participation in all aspects of life, including shared economy platforms. The responsibility of the society to promote the inclusion process of the individual from an early age to build a society takes the process to higher levels. In a shared social enterprise, the responsibility also lies in the promotion of social inclusion of the company to make sure that these steps are considered and implemented in their service.

 

References

Act, D. (2008). Americans with disabilities act. Title VI of the Civil Rights.

Ameri, M., Rogers, S., Schur, L., & Kruse, D. (2017). No room at the inn? Disability access in the new sharing economy.

Desa, U. (2009). Creating an Inclusive Society: Practical Strategies to Promote Social Integration.

Hendricks, A. (2007). UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.

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Health L., 14, 273. Glusac, E. (2016) As Airbnb grows, so do claims of discrimination, retrieved on 23 February 2017 from https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/26/travel/airbnb-discrimination-lawsuit.html. Murphy, L.W. (2016) Airbnb’s work to get discrimination and build inclusion, retrieved on February 23, 2017 from http://blog.airbnb.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/REPORT_Airbnbs-Work-to-Fight-Discrimination-and-Build-Inclusion.pdf.

Therborn, G. (2007) Presentation. Expert Group Meeting on Creating and Inclusive Society:

Practical Strategies to Promote Social Integration. Paris, France, 10 - 13 September 2007 Westbrook, Mary T., Varoe Legge, and Mark Pennay (1993). "Attitudes towards disabilities in a multicultural society." Social Science & Medicine 36(5): 615-623.