Welcome to the Tech Policy Podcast. I'm Evan Swartstraver. On today's show, the hotel industry's model bill and its plan to regulate home sharing. The American Hotel and Lodging Association last month released a model legislation for regulation of platforms like Airbnb and Home Away.

Unsurprisingly, it does contain a lot of restrictions, but just how bad are they?

Is this leveling the playing field, or is this an industry trying to insulate itself from competition?

Joining me to discuss this is Matt Kiesling, Vice President of Short-Term Rental Policy at the Travel Technology Association.

Matt, thanks for joining the show.

Oh, thanks for having me.

So, Matt, I mean, you've got the hotel industry coming up with a plan to regulate its competitors.

What could possibly go wrong?

Yeah, sure.

I mean, at this point, that's what it is, right?

It's about competition. I mean, we haven't seen folks like the Realtors or the apartment association or any of the folks who might have a vested stake or vested interest in, you know,

private homes and home sharing come out and really attack what Airbnb and Home Away and VRBO

and their owners and hosts have been doing, but we have seen the hotel industry get active

and get very active on this particular sharing economy niche. So travel tech, it's a trade association

that represents Airbnb and Homeaway, but not just those. There's a lot of other companies, right?

Sure. So Homeways owned by Expedia, but Trip Advisor, the global distribution systems like

Amadeus and Sabre are also members, you know,

as well as as price line. So this is now model legislation. Is this directed at states,

local government, or both? So the model legislation that we've seen is actually directed at both

cities and states. So we've seen a state version and a city version.

The city version is a little more lengthy and comprehensive, as you might imagine. The state

version basically offers two options. One is we just make short-term rentals or home sharing

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