For Trump Inauguration, D.C. Residents Call for Airbnb Blackout

The Washington Post

16:27 JST, November 23, 2024

When Donald Trump became president-elect yet again, D.C. resident Stacy Kane felt she needed to do something. She’d long bristled at his statements about women and immigrants, his policy priorities and his threats to overhaul her city.

So, as his Jan. 20 inauguration creeps closer, she decided to reach out to fellow Airbnb hosts with a request: Consider taking your rentals off the market that weekend, or increase your prices and donate the profits to liberal causes.

The goal, according to an email Kane and two friends are circulating among community groups and city council members, is “to show Trump supporters who are coming into the DMV that we do not welcome hate, misogyny, or intentions to take over DC.”

So far, Kane said, only four people have signed up, and only two provided their email addresses – though the organizers are hopeful more will join as time passes.

Every four years, inaugurations provide a much-needed January boost for the District’s hospitality businesses at an otherwise slow period as crowds flock to the nation’s capital to witness the president-elect and vice president-elect take their oaths of office. This year, residents are bracing not only for an influx of Trump supporters and protesters, but also for a president who has made more threats to D.C.’s autonomy than any other chief executive in modern history.

The Airbnb initiative was born out of a desire to “try to make any kind of difference that we can in the situation we find ourselves in as D.C. residents and just as human beings right now,” said Kane, a 40-year-old charter school executive director who also operates a two-bedroom rental apartment in her Brookland home. A micro-resistance in a city where more than 92 percent of voters chose Vice President Kamala Harris and are now contending with potential upheaval.

This year’s election results have also sent some Harris supporters – who rode a surge of enthusiasm, booking hotels in anticipation for seeing the first woman, the first Black woman and the first Asian American sworn in as president on Martin Luther King Jr. Day – scrambling for refunds.

“With a Harris win, the historic perspective would have brought in a huge number of people to the city,” said Elliott Ferguson, CEO of Destination DC. First-term inaugurations generate more interest than repeats, he added. As for Trump’s inauguration, he said, “we’ll have to see.”

In January 2017, when Trump was first inaugurated and hundreds of thousands of people gathered in the District for the Women’s March in protest, hotel rooms were more than 94 percent occupied, according to Destination DC. A year later, a non-inauguration year, close to half of rooms were vacant.

The last inauguration, for President Joe Biden in 2021, was scaled back because of the coronavirus pandemic and the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. D.C. officials urged Americans not to visit, while some hotels closed and Airbnb canceled all reservations.

A Washington Post search late Thursday found more than 950 available rentals on Airbnb for the weekend leading up to the inauguration. Online travel agency Booking.com showed just 9 percent of hotels on their site were available for the same two-night stay.

Ferguson hadn’t heard of Kane’s Airbnb initiative but wasn’t surprised by it.

“Stuff like that always happens,” he said. “People will stay ‘let’s protest’ and some will, but most won’t. They’ll try to find a way to maximize revenue.”

He said some hotels don’t release rooms until after the result. The wait-and-see approach, however, didn’t cut it for everyone.

The day after Harris announced her candidacy, Oregon resident Melissa Adams booked a 10-night stay in a Georgetown hotel. She says she paid $5,000 up front.

“I really wanted to take my daughter to the first women’s inauguration,” she said. “Plus, I’d never been to one before.” She started knitting winter gloves with Harris’ face on them for the occasion.

The day after Trump won, she unsuccessfully tried to cancel. Ultimately, she was able to shift her reservation to May, for a non-inauguration mother-daughter trip.

Gourjoine Wade, a university administrator from San Antonio, also made inauguration travel arrangements before the election. He wanted to make sure his daughters had the chances to see a fellow Black woman take the oath of office if Harris emerged victorious.

When booking, he picked one with a generous cancellation policy – which came in handy.

“We definitely wanted flexibility if things didn’t go our way,” he said. He was able to obtain a full refund.

Meanwhile, Kane has taken her 2-bedroom rental off Airbnb for the inauguration. She intends to give the space away to people attending the Jan. 18 “People’s March on Washington” to protest Trump and his policy priorities.

She hopes Airbnb hosts who decide to rent their spaces anyway will consider donating a portion of their earnings to nonprofits “that stands up for democracy, women’s rights, immigrants or climate change.”

Still, it’s unclear if more people will join her call to action. Kane has noticed a sense of fear settle upon the city since the election. An uncertainty about what a second Trump term will mean for the nation’s capital – for the people living and working here, year round.

“Even in this small effort,” she said, “people have been silenced and are afraid to state that they are signing on.”