[Tagging] AirBnB

[Mateusz Konieczny]

On Sat, 19 Mar 2016 00:38:05 -0500
"Shawn K. Quinn" <skquinn at rushpost.com> wrote:

> On Sat, 2016-03-19 at 11:41 +0700, Dave Swarthout wrote:
> > I'm looking for a consistent way to tag AirBnB locations.
> 
> The only authoritative source for the houses currently offered on
> Airbnb is Airbnb itself. There is a reason Airbnb does not show exact
> address or even exact locations on the map.
> 
> This data absolutely, positively, does not belong in OpenStreetMap, as
> there would be no end of ethical, moral, and possibly legal problems
> from doing so. If you've added any of these already, I'd recommend
> quickly reverting the changes.
> 

At least some AirBnB locations are de facto hotels (with all legal &
practical complications). I see absolutely no problem with mapping such
locations (I am not sure how as I never encountered such locations - I
am unsure how exactly "we are hotel but for legal purposes we are
pretending to not be" is done).

Also, I see absolutely no problem with marking privately operated guest
houses or houses where some rooms are reserved for rent for tourists.
For example in Poland it is typical for people in tourism areas
(mountains, seashore, etc) to rent rooms during holidays.

In many cases houses are explicitly constructed to make renting some
rooms easy and in many areas all/nearly all/most of holiday lodgings
is of this type.

I tagged locations like this and I see no ethical, moral and legal
problems with that practise.

The Airbnb case does seem to be similar, though it is possible that data
may get outdated quicker.

Though it may be useful to establish subtag for guest house for
cases where one building contains both permanent residence and rooms for
short-term renting.