Vacation rentals like AirBnb and VRBO are mired in litigation with their clients and hosts challenging the companies over refunds brought on by COVID-19 related closures, amid other issues. Entire class-action lawsuits have escalated the debates around the company’s refund policies. Amid the crisis, AirBnb is said to have lost over 80 percent of its business. Such a decline in activity has rendered the company a casualty of the pandemic-related economic slide.
Vacation Rentals – Woe & Foe
Despite these crises internally, consumers still feel slighted and somehow further wronged by AirBnb. Given the uptick in consumer rights-related legal actions processing through the judicial system, any such suit’s results could be catastrophic for the companies if courts rule in favor of consumers.
It isn’t an overstatement to say that vacation rentals and hoteliers face crises of incomparable proportions. It’s not a crisis impacting only a few companies or industries. It’s a global economic strain that will change the future of vacationing and hosting together. At least, that’s what AirBnb CEO Brian Chesky thinks.
“The world of travel as we knew it in January is never coming back, ” he said in an interview with Yahoo Finance, adding, “We spent 12 years building our business and within six weeks lost about 80 percent of it.”
If you’ve read any of my previous articles my wife and I also call Las Vegas a second home many weeks throughout the year. We visited the valley for the 4th of July. When we were there, the city and state were finally entering the first few stages of the multi-phase reopening strategy set in place by Nevada Gov. Steve Sisolak.
Las Vegas strip reopening
Many hotel-casino resorts on the strip have reopened with physical distancing policies, mask mandates, and cleanliness rules that comply with standards laid out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and state public health rules.
Dining rooms were open, including gaming floors. But, literally, during our time in Las Vegas, the city and the outlying communities quickly rose to be among the country’s fastest-growing jurisdictions of resurgent COVID-19 cases.
In Clark County, where Las Vegas proper is located, total cases are 32,025 and counting. As a response, Gov. Sisolak issued an executive action to temporarily reclose dining rooms, bars, and other related facilities to flatten the curve of the virus further. However, this has prompted protests from business groups and has led to new rounds of litigation, at the expense of taxpayers, employees, and people’s businesses.
Balance between public health and economy
These cases present a question: What is the appropriate balance between protecting the public’s health and stimulating the economy? From my perspective, businesses should have every right to continue operating, even if it is in a modified format with limitations on foot traffic and in-person interactions. Delivery and to-go orders are still permitted at this point, but businesses are stuck relying on stay-at-home-order policy changes.
The recommendations on business operations during the pandemic should further formalize what’s acceptable and what isn’t. Since the summertime is such a crucial season for dining, alcohol, and other hospitality firms and major hoteliers, the recommendations should include mandated mask orders and rules developed with the inclusion of private industry members. Luckily, this is the case for most states. Barring my views on whether Nevada was reopened too quickly or not, the state and Colorado are at least aware of the harm stay-at-home orders have on hospitality industries.
Michael McGrady, writing from Monument, Colo., is a contributor to The Maverick Observer.
