This study explores Fairbnb.coop, a cooperative aiming to revolutionise
the short-term rental market by respecting local regulations, ensuring
transparency, and donating half of its commissions to community
projects. Based on a comprehensive analysis involving twelve
qualitative interviews with stakeholders, such as Fairbnb’s management,
hosts, local nodes, and city administrations, this paper aims to elucidate
the success factors and obstacles within Fairbnb’s processes. The
objective is to assess Fairbnb’s potential to innovate the short-term
rental market. The findings illuminate three key conclusions that
indicate a synchrony of both more and less innovative aspects in
Fairbnb’s approach. Firstly, Fairbnb responds to self-critical hosts and
guests that try to mitigate the negative impacts of tourism. Secondly,
our study identifies several challenges, such as a non-user-friendly
website, scarcity of know-how in the tourism sector of some
stakeholders involved, and the cooperative’s limited popularity. Thirdly,
there is a risk of greenwashing as Fairbnb emulates aspects of Airbnb.
Although Fairbnb shows several innovative approaches, we discuss the
cooperative’s risk of becoming ‘more of the same’ compared to other
platforms such as Airbnb. However, Fairbnb’s model might contribute
to a bottom-up self-regulation in the market.