As I write this, I’m about to head off to Toronto and try my first North American experience of sleeping in a room I found on Airbnb.
This one sounds even better than the one we rented from Andre in Copenhagen, where he and his girlfriend moved out for a few days so we could move into their spacious apartment. The one in Toronto is a bedroom on the same floor occupied by a mother and her son, in a “lushly treed area a brief walk from the centre of the city. … It is filled with artifacts from the changing neighbourhood and our lives. It is definitely not bland. There is a guest spa washroom upstairs, as well as a guest living room, dining area, kitchen, and deck on the second floor, a spa on the third floor with a sauna and an infrared massage bed.”
Previous guests rate the place at 4.5/5. It’s costing me $95 per night, including a $10 fee to Airbnb. Airbnb is one of a mass of new businesses capitalizing on the ability of new media to monetize the wasted assets in many of our lives: excess living space and unused vehicle time being two of the biggest. The average car is used for maybe two hours a day, and when it’s in use, it’s typically at 25% of its potential capacity
The “global sharing economy” promises to change that, making housing and vehicles more affordable, increasing travel and mobility options, lowering public infrastructure costs (e.g., fewer parking spaces) and throwing numerous industries into upheaval.
On the consumer side, it’s creating new income sources for people whose resources are as limited as being able to couch-surf at a friend’s house for a few nights while they rent out their own place (like Andre in Copenhagen).
In June, Airbnb hit 10 million guest nights, riding on investments from Silicon Valley venture funds and marquis investor actor Ashton Kutcher that price the company in the $1 billion range. The 10 million number was achieved a mere five months after the company scored five million guest nights.
In 2008, a night of travel was booked once a day on Airbnb. Now there’s one booked every two seconds.That’s just in the hospitality sector. It’s also thriving in transportation. Vancouver is already home to more car-sharing options than any city in North America: Modo, Zipcar and Car2Go. (We’ll soon be catching up with other cities on bike sharing.) One study estimates that the 21,000 vehicles now in car-sharing schemes in Europe will jump tenfold by 2020.
The next wave of car sharing will turn your personal vehicle into a car-for-hire through peer-to-peer car sharing, reducing “car overpopulation” while increasing mobility options.
Enter companies like Getaround and RelayRides, so far based in just a few cities in the U.S. (Boston and San Francisco Bay area). These services allow car owners to rent out their personal vehicles by the hour or day, set their own rates and pick their own customers. Listing is free. Drivers need to have their driving records screened and approved, but RelayRides carries $1 million liability insurance and covers any physical damage up to the cash value of the vehicle.
General Motors is partnering by allowing registered OnStar RelayRide vehicles to be unlocked with smartphones.
BMW has even invested in another sharing opportunity: residential parking spaces, through a company called ParkAt MyHouse. Avego offers ride sharing by letting drivers turn their cars into virtual cabs, filling those empty seats for cash.
As exciting as all this is for consumers, it’s an unsettling game-changer for many industries. Each shared car takes more than eight cars off the road, leading to 44% less driving. Hotels, motels, car rental agencies, car dealers, parking lot operators are among those about to be upended by all this.
Oh, and I didn’t see any taxes on my Airbnb invoice. •
