I’m nervous.

The province is getting ready to regulate Airbnb. If Nova Scotia follows the example of cities like Toronto and Montreal, they will crack down on the platform, smothering its potential. I hope that, instead, they will take a light touch, preventing the worst risks while maximizing the platform’s promise.

Airbnb and other similar websites let people rent out rooms to travellers for short-term stays. They are controversial, creating concerns around competition for licensed accommodation businesses, taxation and, especially, affordability.

Late last year, N.S. tourism minister Geoff MacLellan created a working group to analyze these issues and offer solutions.

Airbnb is disruptive, but it is also one of our best opportunities to create a vastly better experience of Nova Scotia for travellers, and to support our rural economy. Regulation should focus on those benefits, not just the risk.

Airbnb is a powerful tool because it takes advantage of Nova Scotia’s two best assets: the people and the place.

Not long ago, travellers had a handful of places where they could stay: a hotel, motel, bed and breakfast, or resort. With so many people hosting on Airbnb, however, that diversity has exploded. I’ve personally stayed in a quiet cabin with a wood stove by a lake with paddle boats, a heritage home decorated with pieces of the province’s history, and a tree house.

Compare that to hotels: a generic white room that looks the same as any hotel in the world, with no sense of place or culture, and a fake painting. Many travellers spend more time in their accommodation than any other single place. Nova Scotia can offer a better memory than an anonymous white room.

When travellers come here, they want to meet Nova Scotians and experience their culture. Being invited to someone’s home would be a highlight of the trip for many. Airbnb makes that possible on scale.

Whereas hotels place a sterilized filter between tourists and the culture, Airbnb puts travellers right in the thick of it. In some cases, hosts offer to show guests around town, and some have become long-time friends.

Perhaps most important is what the platform could mean for rural Nova Scotia. Many residents want to continue living in their beautiful rural home, but they lack economic opportunity. With Airbnb, that beautiful place itself becomes that opportunity, because travellers will happily pay to see someone’s personal corner of paradise.

I’ve noticed a trend where people leave Halifax on the weekend to stay in rural Airbnb. Few people would do that to stay in a motel or hotel, and fewer still can afford a resort for just any old weekend. That means urban money flowing to the rural communities who need it.

Long-term, the biggest risk Airbnb creates is that housing could become less affordable if people rent some units out for short-term stays. This needs to be taken seriously.

The topic is not simple, however, because Airbnb can help affordability as well. I know people who use the platform to rent out part of their home to help pay their own rent or mortgage. Whether the issue is a major risk also depends on its scale. If, this year, Halifax chooses not to build a single 100 unit building, that will have a bigger impact on affordability than 50 people renting out units on Airbnb.

If thousands of urban homes are replaced with short-term rentals, however, that’ll be a problem. So government should carefully monitor the Airbnb market, seeking to maximize the benefits, while carefully adjusting rules if the market does get out of hand. The answer is not to return to a pre-Airbnb world, but to manage its impact carefully.

I’m less sympathetic to bed and breakfast owners who are afraid Airbnb will create competition. Good bed and breakfasts are already succeeding on the platform, providing one kind of product among many that travellers want. If they don’t want to work hard to compete, too bad.

The concern that Airbnb are less safe because they don’t have licenses is a chimera. Hosts have a powerful incentive to provide consistent safety and quality because one bad rating could mean they lose all their guests. A license does not provide that kind of constant incentive or feedback.

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And in any case, there is plenty of room for everyone in the sector to grow. In 2017, some hotels charged over $400 a night during the tourist season. Hotels have gotten away with charging way too much for a mediocre product for far too long. Airbnb lets regular Nova Scotians offer tourists a better experience for less, and with a booking process that is just as easy. That’s the kind of thing this province needs.

The government must take a careful approach to regulation, because we should allow as much room as possible for Nova Scotians to experiment - and turn this province into a far better place to visit.

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