NYC Hotel Industry Attack Ad Links Airbnb To Terrorism

The New York City hotel industry is shelling out nearly a half-million dollars to run a 30-second ad on cable networks that says Airbnb facilitates terrorist activity.

The “Who’s in your building?” attack ad paid for by Local 6 AFL-CIO against the short-term lodging and hospitality app is just the latest in the ongoing war between Airbnb and hotel associations worldwide. The ad begins airing Monday on cable networks as well as primetime evening television spots on networks including Fox News, CNN and MSNBC, according to the New York Daily News.

The ad has no voices but features several ominous messages and music throughout, including “Are you at risk?” and “So who’s in your building? Airbnb won’t say.”

Read: Trump-Supporting Airbnb Host Must Pay Fine For Racist Comment to Renter

A slideshow of images from the May 2017 Manchester Arena bombing are shown and cited media reports show bomber Salman Abedi rented short-term lodging through a local online realtor. The ad shows cited media headlines such as, “Massive Packages Sent To Terror Raid Flat Prior To Manchester Bombing.”

But despite media outlets labeling his rental apartment a “bomb factory” in the wake of the attack, the unit was rented out by a local couple and Airbnb was in no way involved in the process.

The ad claims Airbnb has “refused” to provide the addresses of more than 40,000 city apartments listed on the app to law enforcement officials, although the company does in Chicago, San Francisco and New Orleans. Set to run for 10 days, including during some Yankees and Mets game broadcasts, the ad urges New Yorkers to “take a stand” against Airbnb and “force” them to provide their listings to police.

“We still remain the number one terrorist target in the world,” reads a quote from former NYPD Commissioner Bill Bratton, in the ad.

Airbnb spokesman Peter Schottenfels ridiculed the advertisement in a statement to the Daily News as “an outrageous scare tactic by big hotels who themselves have a long history of lodging people who engage in acts of terror.”

He noted that the Sept. 11, 2001, attackers as well as the 2015 Paris attackers stayed at hotels.

“The fact is Airbnb had nothing to do with the tragic events in Manchester and we are one of the only hospitality companies that runs background checks on all U.S. residents, both hosts and guests,” Schottenfels said. “Hotel CEOs have a responsibility to tell us why they don’t do the same and why they continue to fund this sort of despicable, cynical advertising.”

The hotel industry and Airbnb have been weary of each side’s share of the market since the app was created in 2008.

A study paid for by the American Hotel & Lodging Education Foundation released in March claimed Airbnb was simply running “illegal hotels.”

“The home-sharing platform is allowing commercial operators to run ... illegal hotels in neighborhoods across the country," Katherine Lugar, president and CEO of the American Hotel & Lodging Association, told the Chicago Tribune. "The report debunks the story Airbnb likes to tell of themselves as merely a home-sharing platform where hardworking Americans may occasionally rent a room in their home.”

Morgan Stanley and several other firms have produced reports indicating large revenue losses within the hotel industry as it competes with Airbnb, but recent research from firms says massive hotel companies like Marriott are seeing huge gains. According to STR Global data, revenues across the U.S. reached $199 billion in 2016, an increase of nearly $9 billion over 2015. Net profits, also a record, stood at $76 billion, a 2 percent increase (per available room) compared with 2015.