Airbnb is already cashing in on Super Bowl

The Super Bowl is about a month away and Airbnb is already singing a victory song.

The annual event is known to dramatically increase local hotel revenues, and, for 2018, Airbnb wanted a piece of the action in the Twin Cities: the short-term rental giant launched a project dedicated to getting more hosts in the area and have exceeded their loftiest goals, according to the Wall Street Journal.

“It is increasingly realistic that the Airbnb host community will end up tripling to 3,000,” the company said in a statement. Their original goal had been 2,000 and, as of last February, when Airbnb’s effort kicked off, there were only 1,000 hosts so even the idea of doubling that number seemed “an audacious goal” worth trying for.

But residents of the Twin Cities were more enthusiastic then the company thought and with homes renting out for thousands of dollars a night, who could blame them? Well, hoteliers – that’s who. They advocated for Minneapolis and St. Paul to adopt regulations to govern Airbnb’s operations in the area, which were successfully passed this fall.

Fortunately for Airbnb and locals who wanted rent out their homes, the new rules don’t seem to have acted as a deterrent for hosts. As a result, the company is lightening up on their original response to the regulations, which was to take the Twin Cities to court.

[WSJ] — Erin Hudson