User:PlanetSharing/sandbox

Paris-Sharing is an alternative accommodation website inspired by the general notion of sharing, more recently coined as collaborative consumption, a major socioeconomic trend. . Its Paris origins are best understood in the context of a continuing deficit of tourist accommodations in a city that welcomes some 17 000 guests per year in hotels alone. Paris-Sharing, operated by the company Planet Sharing SAS, is a Paris-based website that offers Paris visitors a stay in Parisan homes for vacation or business. In December 2012 the company had over 100 homes in Paris, offered either as self-catering apartments or as Bed & Breakfasts.

Origin
Paris-Sharing.com was founded in 2010 by Carsten Sprotte, an American in Paris with a previous career in management consulting and training. Prior to starting the business, the founder had been confronted with the need to pay for his family's trip back to the USA by renting out his Paris apartment while away. He quickly identified the difficulty of providing a high level of hospitality to guests without being physically present, and observed that such service was not covered by existing websites such as Airbnb. Further research into the Paris tourist accommodation market revealed that the same type of service was needed not just for self-catering rentals, but also for Bed & Breakfast offers and home exchanges. It was with the intention of meeting such needs that Paris-Sharing was created.

Initial development
The site launched with only 5 homes and grew to 40 in 2011 and 110 by the end of 2012. In December 2011, the company raised an initial 260,000 Euros from business angels and other individual investors. In the wake of massive marketing investments by recent international competitors such as Airbnb and Housetrip, Paris-Sharing pursued a niche strategy, focused on upscale or spacious accommodations with services catered both to owners and to guests. In this way, it can be considered both as an e-commerce and a local business with an international customer base, referred to as some with the expression "click and mortar".

Underlying sociological trends
ParisSharing is one of many examples of the sociological and economical trend coined as collaborative consumption by Rachel Botsman in her book "What's Mine is Yours: The Rise of Collaborative Consumption". In a nutshell, the impulse behind collaborative consumption is to reduce the environmental impact of our consumption by replacing ownership by resource sharing. Most of what we own is under-utilized (the drill being the most blatant example), so if we can find ways of optimizing the use of existing resources, we won't need to produce so much waste. The trend towards collaborative consumption can be observed in automotive transportation in the examples of Carpool.com, Zipcar, and Buzzcar.

The existing Paris tourist accommodation market
The world's number one tourist destination in 2011, France and its capital city have served as a laboratory for collaborative consumption. In 2011, Paris continued to suffer from an insufficient number of hotel rooms, with average occupation rates over 80% and a deficit of some 26,000 hotel rooms expected by 2020. Concurrently, there are an estimated 100 000 homes that are theoretically available on any given day, due to the propensity of Parisians to travel and also due to large number of secondary homes owned by non-residents.

Competitive environment
The rapid and massive appearance of peer-to-peer vacation rental websites significantly disrupted the travel industry during the 2000-2010 decade. The first internationally dominant player, HomeAway Inc, emerged in 2005 and quickly expanded via an aggressive acquisition strategy. The HomeAway business model is based on paid subscriptions whereby owners advertise their properties to travelers. Flipkey, a TripAdvisor Company, was founded in 2007 and is currently one of the few international alternatives to HomeAway. Airbnb, starting in 2008, introduced a new model whereby people can list their properties, or space, at no initial cost, paying only commissions to Airbnb based on the amount of the transactions that are carried out directly on their website. The Airbnb model was replicated over the following three years by sites such as Housetrip, 9-flats, and Wimdu. During the same period, a more qualitative approach focused on upscale travelers with high expectations arose in London with OneFineStay and Paris with Paris-Sharing. Both websites use their local presence to offer numerous additional services both to owners and travelers.

Regulatory and tax issues
Beginning in 2008, worldwide peer-to-peer rental websites emerged too rapidly for government regulations to keep up. As a result, the companies behind such websites were operating, strictly speaking, in violation to the laws of many countries in which their transactions were carried out. In France, for example, all activities that involve any kind of real estate transactions, including short-term rental, require a permit issued by the local police department. The permit is only issued to companies meeting a certain number of requirements in terms of insurance and financial guaranties. Companies such as Airbnb, based outside of France, were able to start off their activities without complying to these regulations, whereas local companies were obliged to comply. This resulted in an uneven playing field that penalized local companies and benefited those based in countries with less stringent requirements.

The issue has also been raised that Value Added Tax(VAT)should be levied on all real estate transactions based on the country where the property is located. However, internet companies such as Airbnb have managed to avoid their local VAT obligations in countries like France where the VAT rate is 19.6%, because public authorities were not quick enough to detect the problem. This also has created an uneven playing field for local companies who must sell the same services with a VAT mark-up.

A final regulatory threat to the emerging peer-to-peer vacation rental market has been the effort by the City of Paris to fine owners who rent out their home without requesting a permit. Since the constraints for obtaining the permit are such that very few owners can obtain it, the measure dissuades an increasing number. In principle, the City of Paris has taken such action in order to free up properties to be rented to locals instead of travelers, therefore easing the tension on the housing market. In reality, there are a large number of homes that would not available on the housing market anyway, either because they are already someone's primary home, or because the owner wishes to keep use of the property as a secondary home. The City's measure has caused considerable stir because it has been declared "unconstitutional" by numerous legal experts, who defend the right of a property owner to dispose of his/her property as he so pleases. While opposed to vacation rentals, the City of Paris actively promotes Bed & Breakfast establishments.

Business model
Paris-Sharing has a membership of home owners who fit into at least one of three categories: 1/ they have a primary home that is vacant for several months per year and therefore available for travelers 2/ they have a secondary home that is available most of the time, but for which they still want to have the flexibility to use 3/ their home includes a separate bedroom and bathroom that they wish to offer as a Bed & Breakfast. ParisSharing earns revenues based on commissions charged for each reservation via its website, as well as from extra services it provides to owners and to travelers.

The Community
The purpose of the community is to make rental and home exchange transactions between people who don't yet know each other safe, reassuring, and enjoyable. Members of the community all adhere to a Member Charter which lays out a simple code of good behavior. In addition, Paris-Sharing systematically provides a formal rental agreement for each transaction.

The website offers many common social network functions to facilitate the community, such as member profiles with a photo and selected information. These profiles are only available to other members that you have accepted. Members of the community in Paris can also volunteer to welcome guests in other member's homes, and benefit from the same service in return.

Incorporation and shareholding
As of 2012, Paris-Sharing is jointly owned by private shareholders, many of whom are also owners who benefit from the services offered by the company.

Customer reception
Even though available in French and Japanese, the website primarily targets English-speaking travelers. It's customer feedback includes reviews from Australia, Canada, the USA, the UK, and Scandinavia.