The one who's travelling has the weakest odds of all. The traveler will be in a foreign place with no place to stay. In contrast, the host has no losing cards e

The one who's travelling has the weakest odds of all. The traveler will be in a foreign place with no place to stay. In contrast, the host has no losing cards except some income. No, the one being scammed has the weakest odds. The "traveler" could in fact be a local scammer who sabotages a property and then has various ways (which I won't detail) for turning a profit on it if the rules favor the "poor traveler". I'm not saying the rules shouldn't favor the traveler, I'm cautioning against assuming that the traveler would always be the victim in case of a scam. This assumption is often the result of projection by an honest observer who can easily picture himself as the traveler but not as the property owner. Better than biasing the outcome, in my opinion, would be for AirBnB to require all communication about "changes" to go through the corporate system. If both parties agree "it's fine", the event is noted but not investigated until it happens repeatedly. Top N% of repeats plus others at random get investigated. But if either party says it's "not fine", there will be no reviews allowed (so no threat of bad review), and AirBnB will investigate and do the "reviewing" themselves, with the investigation escalating in vigor with repeats. They will also make it clear that any evidence of intentional fraud they uncover will be promptly taken to law enforcement. Of course this would raise costs for AirBnB, which would be passed on as fees, reducing the cost advantage of AirBnB vs traditional hotels. But if raising the trust level to hotel level eliminated the cost advantage over hotels, the cost advantage would be an illusion.