Lessons for Wellington from the councils that have tried to regulate Airbnb

As Wellington City Council contemplates changing rates for Airbnb owners, what can it learn from councils who have been there, done that? 

The first thing you encounter when scrolling through Airbnb, the ubiquitous accommodation booking website, is the abundance of options. Dozens of plump pillows arranged on tidy beds. Lots of grey carpets and greige walls. Turquoise blue pools, a picture of a cottage with a rainbow arching over the roof. Fifteen pages of options of people’s houses to stay in.  

That’s just in Christchurch – probably not the most popular holiday destination in New Zealand. Search Airbnb or similar platforms, like Bookabach, for “Queenstown” and dozens of options pop up, more and more appearing as you zoom into the map. The Taupō area, similarly, has 690 Airbnb options displayed for a weekend in April, while the much larger cities of Wellington and Auckland have 770 and over 1,000 respectively. 

There have long been concerns that areas with high…