BLOOMBERG: Airbnb said it took down 1,500 commercial listings before releasing its books but failed to disclose that many of the same landlords re-added units after the removal.
Airbnb released data for New York City late last year that showed most of the revenue from local listings came from hosts with only one or two listings on the site. “Our hope is that people will understand 99 percent of people on Airbnb in New York City are using it as an economic lifeline,” a company executive told the New York Times at the time. New York state legislators blasted the company earlier this month after a report argued the home-sharing company had quietly removed commercially operated listings in New York City in the weeks before releasing data to the public.
In a letter to lawmakers on Wednesday, the company said it purged the listings because they “did not reflect Airbnb’s vision for our community.”
