Fairbnb.coop

Our commitment to crafting an alternative that is sustainable, innovative accountable to communities has led us to avoid big angel investors and venture capital. Instead, we have relied on cooperative funding on our journey so far, with our own members providing over €100,000 to establish the initiative.

Today, we are turning to you help us take our project across the finish line. The funds we are raising will finance Fairbnb’s launch tour of Spain across five cities: Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia, Bilbao and Sevilla. This tour, consisting of participatory workshops, will be crucial for raising awareness about solutions to over-tourism, and involving residents in the creation of local Fairbnb nodes.

The Problem & Fairbnb’s Solution

Conventional sharing problems platforms have three main problems: they are opaque, they load costs onto communities, and they are undemocratic. Fairbnb is designed to actively redress these problems, prioritising transparency, the distribution of benefits to communities, and democratic decision-making.

How do we do this?

First
We collaborate with municipalities to ensure the legality of all rented homes, and full compliance with local law.

Second
Half of the commission charged by Fairbnb is returned to the local community, sustaining projects selected by local residents. From playgrounds to cultural centres, community gardens to women’s shelters, the income from travellers nourishes and regenerates communities.

Third
We are a cooperative, owned by our members. Our decisions are made collaboratively, and our salaries are capped. We have firm values and ethical policies we abide by. Through our network of local nodes, we empower local communities to shape the tourism that affects them, and ensure its benefits return to them.

Why Fair?

+We’re transparent. We share our data with local governments so cities can understand the real impact of tourism.

• We are fully compliant with local regulation and complement it by amplifying with suggestions of additional policies by local communities.
• 1 host – 1 home policy. We avoid multi-hosts in the platform, to ease the effect of over-tourism over the residential accommodation.

Why a Co-op?

+We are independent. Our platform is owned not by faceless investors but by those who use it and are impacted by its use
+Co-ownership + Co-Governance. Decisions are made collaboratively under a distributed governance.

Why Community Centered?

• We foster local economies: Half of the commission charged by Fairbnb is returned to the local community, sustaining projects selected by local residents.
• Local nodes are at the center of our organization and represent the engine that connect the people in the territories making human interaction the real “technology” of Fairbnb.coop

Over the last years, the number of tourists and trips they take has grown rapidly. But while greater numbers of people have been able to access the luxury of travel, mass tourism has also brought difficult consequences for many cities.

From Cape Town to Tokyo, New York to Barcelona, neighbourhoods have seen rising real estate prices, eroded communities, and displaced families. In recent years, a variety of loosely-regulated online platforms have emerged to facilitate the short-term stays of tourists. But under the benign banner of allowing residents to belong anywhere, these platforms have facilitated this irresponsible model of tourism.

For many citizens, the promise of ‘home-sharing’ has turned into ‘home-stripping’. Resident associations, social movements, and municipalities have expressed growing preoccupation over tourism-fuelled gentrification and the deterioration of living conditions. Even the hospitality industry has started to acknowledge the problem of over-tourism.

Amidst this context, alternatives are emerging, as residents and urbanists begin to rethink and envision other models of tourism. Visions where tourism regenerates rather than despoils cities; where the hefty financial gains of the hospitality industry, are reinvested to benefit residents and transform their lived environments for the better.

Fairbnb.coop’s journey started in 2016 as a movement seeking to create an equitable and lawful alternative to existing home-sharing platforms. with a focus on commons and 100% respectful with legality. Although the movement initiated in Venice and Amsterdam,

soon other groups from all over Europe joined the conversation and helped us shape the final model that we are seeking to implement.

In late 2018 we created a co-op to provide be the legal backbone entity behind a fair, collectively-owned and transparent booking platform. This platform that will enable travelers to find lawful accommodations and facilitate meaningful travel opportunities, while reinvesting reinvests 50% of its revenues to support local communities.

Fairbnb.coop today is a broad community of academics, activists, entrepreneurs, coders, researchers and designers, all united by a common desire to bring ‘share’ back into the sharing economy. Our diverse team has expertise across a range of disciplines, coupled with decades of experience bringing sustainable enterprises and social initiatives to life.