I’m not a fan of Airbnb because they don’t do a great job standing behind reservations. In fairness, hotels overbook and walk guests too.

However I’m also not a fan of the disingenuous scare campaigns hotels band together to use in lobbying to get government to shut down the competition, to get people to narc on their neighbors to regulators, and running sting operations against unsuspecting hosts.

New York’s hotel industry goes too far in having a Richard Anderson moment.

New York City was the primary target on 9/11. If there’s any place that the event holds enduring meaning, it’s Manhattan. Using terrorism for political purposes trivializes the lives lost in the attack on the World Trade Center that day, including people that I knew.

None of that stops the Hotel Industry Association, in conjunction with UNITE Here and AFL-CIO Local 6 accusing Airbnb of enabling terrorism.

It cites media coverage that bomber Salman Abedi used a short-term rental apartment [in Manchester, England] he found through a local online real estate agent and had “massive packages” sent to him at that location — which was not an Airbnb unit.

Terrorists, it seems, don’t use hotels. Oh, wait, the 9/11 hijackers spent the nights leading up to their attacks in hotels.

The major hotels chains supporting this efforts should be ashamed, and their executives should apologize. Because in Manhattan terrorism is something that happened and not something to be trivialized for self-serving ends.

(HT: @jasonclampet)