Ms Amanda Cupples:

I can start and others can pitch in if they want to. All sorts of regulatory schemes have been brought in in countries all around the world. We work with all of them. Some of them work better than others. I can give the Senator chapter and verse on why that is.

From an Airbnb perspective, where a large part of our host base are hosts like the ones the committee has talked about today, that is, real people and families who often live in their homes are sharing a space, what is very clear is that the existence of conditions, be they planning or licensing, requires a lot of steps to be taken, cost, complexity or sheer confusion, the existence of those barriers, paradoxically, takes out of the market the people we do not want to take out. Professional hosts are able to navigate expensive and burdensome regulations. Our average hosts, who earn €5,000 to €6,000 per year, are the ones who want to leave the market. Those sharing rooms withdraw that accommodation, which, of course, does not go onto the long-term market. We see that pattern repeated again and again around the world.

I have referred to countries where systems work really well. Registration systems that can provide the evidence base we have spoken about today, comprising the type, volume and nature of short-term letting activity in a geographic area, can be used to make robust planning policy decisions, supported by evidence. We are very strongly in favour of that process taking place. We are extremely respectful and supportive of the ability of local authorities to make those decisions.

Our experience internationally is that the factors that go into planning are often very localised. The idea that we simply lay down the same set of rules to cover a whole country very rarely works in terms of achieving objectives. Our experiences is of a two-step process which involves a registration system that effectively gives us an evidence base around short-term letting and we then allow regulators at the appropriate level to make decisions that balance the needs of preserving the tourism economy and protecting housing at the appropriate level. That is the right way to do it. We welcome the opportunity to work with regulators all around the world.

As I said, we have written books on this internally . We would be happy to provide to the committee some case studies on where this has worked well in Europe. We can follow up in writing if that would be helpful.