In the back room of a pub in Kentish Town, a group of middle-class Londoners are perched on velvet-covered stools, eating hummus and talking about property. On the wall, above a pile of empty beer kegs, a slide presentation is in progress. A video of Airbnb’s recent advert shows smiling hosts opening their front doors and declaring their support for Sadiq Khan’s post-Brexit “London is open” campaign.
The audience of Airbnb hosts are there after receiving individual invitations from the company to a “home sharers” meet-up – a concept largely unfamiliar to the slightly bemused crowd. Jonathan, an enthusiastic Californian Airbnb employee, who was recently seconded to London to set up the clubs, is happy to explain: “Homesharing clubs are simply a way of organising this into something … that has a unified voice … then actually takes actions as a collective,” he says, in a less than clear answer.
More simply, homesharing clubs are advocacy groups made up of Airbnb hosts – loose, informal lobbying groups that push the company’s agenda to politicians. The clubs are part of a what is fast becoming a concerted fightback by Airbnb, the website founded in 2008 when three college friends rented out air mattresses in their San Francisco flat as a way of making money, to become one of the biggest online travel brands in the world.
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