Understanding Inequity and Economics: Airbnb Inc. and Saint Lucia

BUS530 Case 4
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Trident University International
BUS530 Managerial Economics
Due Date
BUS530 Case 4: Airbnb Inc. and Saint Lucia
Understanding Inequity and Economics: Airbnb Inc.
Airbnb Inc. is an American company headquartered in San Francisco. Airbnb runs an online marketplace for short-term homestays. It was founded in 2008 by Brian Chesky, Nathan Blecharczyk, and Joe Gebbia. Since its formation, Airbnb has revolutionized the tourism and hospitality sector. Like other companies, one of the issues Airbnb has encountered is ensuring economic justice and equity.
Airbnb's business model is crucial in evaluating the company's track record in economic justice and equity. Airbnb uses the multifaced platform model (Reinhold & Dolnicar, 2021). Here, the company is in the middle, connecting customers and businesses. In this case, Airbnb connects guests needing accommodation with hosts with extra space to rent out. The stakeholders and the nature of the business make Airbnb a focus company when discussing economic justice and equity, which are building blocks to equality. Airbnb faced acute criticism from customers and the general public that the company was exploiting and discriminating against hosts and guests. There were also allegations of sexual, ethnic, gender and racial discrimination against people using the company's platform.
However, Airbnb has acted on these concerns to ensure economic justice and equity. It has done this by implementing policies and regulations that protect customers, clients and other stakeholders. Airbnb has enforced several policies that have helped improve its economic justice and equity (Airbnb.com, 2022; Reinhold & Dolnicar, 2021). One of the policies is the community commitment and non-discrimination policy, which aims to ensure that all stakeholders get equal treatment and value for their roles. The second policy is on reviews, where the company rolled out a prompt review mechanism to help guests give reviews, especially on black, Latin and other hosts of color.
Airbnb launched projects like the Open Doors and Project Lighthouse. Project Open Doors is a corporate social responsibility initiative to temporarily accommodate the people affected by natural and human-made disasters. Project Lighthouse addresses how people of color experience Airbnb (Reinhold & Dolnicar, 2021). The project measures the degree of discrimination based on perception. Therefore, these projects have helped Airbnb achieve economic justice and equity in the communities they serve.
Future Plans
Airbnb has plans in place to improve economic inequity. In November 2022, the company launched the Adapted category targeting people living with a disability. The people recruited for the Adapted category program give the company feedback on the market needs of people living with disability (Reinhold & Dolnicar, 2021). In turn, this helps Airbnb to implement good policies on economic justice and equity.
The company has implemented an all-inclusive workforce policy. This ensures that employees from different cultural and economic backgrounds are hired. Airbnb's goal by 2025 is to have a 50% of its global employees who identify with the binary gender as women and 20% as those from underr...