AirBnB monopolized the financials of the transaction. You could rent someone's vacation house through Craigslist and agree to pay cash/check, but if the place

AirBnB monopolized the financials of the transaction. You could rent someone's vacation house through Craigslist and agree to pay cash/check, but if the place was not what it's cracked up to be, or the owner suddenly demands a higher rate (or slaps some fee that was not previously discussed), you were out of luck. AirBnB has its own share of scams with non-existent apartments, but their payout rules (as well as reliance on credit cards) provide some new consumer protection previously unavailable with p2p rentals. If your thesis is true, then any of those "tourist board or various organisations" can just put up a Web site, accept payments and start raking in millions of dollars. Besides Homeaway and Flipkey very few do.