Airbnb scored a major victory on Wednesday by beating Proposition F, which sought to limit short-term rentals in San Francisco. But the $25.5 billion lodging startup acknowledges that the political battle is nowhere near over.
Airbnb saw a major victory on Tuesday night when 55% of voters in San Francisco voted against Proposition F, a measure that sought to regulate short-term rentals in the bustling city.
Early election results show that San Franciscans voted overwhelmingly to reject a law limiting Airbnb in the city.
Protestors stormed the headquarters of multibillion dollar lodging startup Airbnb on Monday in San Francisco, one day before Bay Area residents cast their votes either in favor of or against Proposition F–the “Airbnb initiative,” a measure that seeks to regulate short-terms rentals in the city.
Airbnb has made headlines for reportedly spending a whopping $8,000,000 to defeat a San Francisco proposition to restrict short-term rentals. That translates into roughly $40 per voter of advertising from Airbnb alone, not including supporting tech lobbies.
The $8 million political war chest raised by Airbnb and others to defeat San Francisco’s Proposition F, which would be an existential threat to private short-term “vacation rentals,” appears to be succeeding, with a double-digit lead in the polls.
The multibillion dollar lodging startup Airbnb has apologized for a series of forthright ads they placed on bus shelters throughout the Bay Area that tell municipal agencies in San Francisco what they can do with the millions in city hotel taxes their company is paying.
With San Francisco’s local election day approaching, Airbnb and friends have raised more than $8 million to fight tougher restrictions on short-term “vacation rentals.”
