Airbnb to mobilize users nationwide to lobby for its model

Fresh from defeating San Francisco’s Proposition F, which sought to curtail vacation rentals, Airbnb plans to organize its hosts and guests worldwide into city-based guilds to lobby for turning homes into hotels.

“We’re going to build on the momentum coming from San Francisco ... to give our community access to the finest grassroots training, tools and support,” said Chris Lehane, Airbnb head of global policy, at a press conference at the company’s South of Market headquarters.

While he said the plan is for “independent clubs to be run by hosts and guests,” the $25.5 billion company will provide such help as dedicated Airbnb staff, information, support and a hotline to its headquarters, he said.

Airbnb’s explosive growth — it has more than 2 million listings in 34,000 cities — has spurred pushback from lawmakers, neighbors, landlords and housing activists in many of those cities.

“Airbnb knows there will always be a public policy threat out there that could shake up their business in a fundamental way, so it makes sense that they’d take the next step to try to build their network,” said Edward Walker, a UCLA sociology professor and author of “Grassroots for Hire” about corporate-backed political movements.

Airbnb’s 4 million hosts and guests nationwide represent a potent political bloc, Lehane said, comparing their numbers to those of the National Rifle Assocation (5.1 million), the National Education Association (2.9 million) and the Sierra Club (2.4 million).

[...] the provisional results — 55 percent of voters (73,556 people) rejected the measure, while 45 percent (60,025) supported it — were closer than many observers had expected, and closer than polls commissioned by Airbnb had projected.