NFPA Journal - Fall 2023 - 58

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58 | NFPA JOURNAL * FALL 2023
hese days, the most dangerous
form of leisure travel is
staying in a short-term rental.
This industry segment is also
referred to as vacation rentals,
along the lines of what you find
through popular websites such
as Airbnb or Vrbo. Home, after
all, is where the most safety-related
incidents occur.
According to the National Safety Council, nearly
57 percent of all safety-related incidents in 2021 that
occurred in the United States occurred in homes.
Similarly, short-term rentals saw an increase in the
number of deaths and injuries. While there are no
official records kept of safety related incidents in
short-term rentals, media reports have increasingly
highlighted these incidents. Among the fatalities
in short-term rentals in 2022 were more than 100
children who drowned in pools associated with
these properties.
Today there are more than 2 million short-term
rentals in the U.S., properties that collectively generated
an estimated $62 billion in revenue in 2022,
a 25 percent year-over-year increase from 2021,
according to AirDNA. Short-term rental revenues
are rapidly approaching hotel revenues, which
were $93 billion last year,
according to eTurbo News.
Short-term rental revenue
numbers are predicted to
double by 2030.
This growth, however,
comes with challenges
related to insurance, government
oversight, the impulses
of property owners, and
other factors that can have
a detrimental impact on
renter safety. As an expert
in short-term rental safety,
I can say with confidence
that all of these issues could
be addressed if we took the
necessary step of regarding
vacation rentals as the commercial
enterprises that they
are. By doing so, we would
bring to bear the regulatory and enforcement tools provided
by NFPA codes and standards that currently are
mostly absent from the short-term rental landscape.
Most states and localities still categorize these
properties as residential use. With a hotel or motel,
guests are considered part of the general public
and pay a lodging tax that is used to fund, among
other things, regular government inspection of the
accommodation to check for safety issues. Shortterm
renters of vacation homes also pay a local
lodging tax, but they aren't getting a property that
has been inspected by government officials, and
there is typically no record of safety issues that have
(or haven't) been addressed. We've been willing to
regulate hotels and motels in the name of safety
while all but ignoring short-term rentals, even as
their popularity has exploded.
As a number of recent incidents involving shortterm
rentals demonstrates, this is a recipe for
disaster. But it doesn't have to be this way.
Short-term Wild West
Not that long ago, hotels and motels faced similar
safety issues. Safety features could vary widely from
building to building, as could safety requirements
from one community to the next. For decades, the
industry was periodically rocked by deadly hotel
fires. In the 1940s, the La Salle Hotel fire in Chicago
killed 61, and 119 perished in the Winecoff Hotel
fire in Atlanta, which remains the nation's deadliest
hotel fire. In 1963, a fire at the Hotel Roosevelt in
Jacksonville, Florida, killed 22. In 1980, the MGM
Grand Hotel blaze on the Las Vegas Strip killed 85.
Weary of the drumbeat of death and destruction,
the federal government in 1990 moved to make paid
accommodations safer by creating the Hotel and
Motel Fire Safety Act, the purpose of which was to
" save lives and protect property by promoting fire
and life safety in hotels, motels, and all places of
public accommodation affecting commerce. "
But short-term rentals, then a much smaller
segment of the hospitality industry, were left out
of this act. They certainly existed, as they had for
centuries-George Washington slept in short-term
rentals-but in 1990 there were fewer than 100,000
vacation rentals in the country, a fraction of the millions
of hotel and motel rooms. Short-term rentals
at the time were typically a condo at a ski resort or
someone's family home in a coastal location; fewer
than one in 200 Americans stayed in short-term
rentals. As a host of effective tools, including codes
and standards, was developed to achieve the safety
goals expressed by the government for commercial
accommodations, no such safeguards were articulated
for short-term rentals.
This challenge is compounded to some degree
by the insurance industry, which has been less
interested in whether it should insure short-term
rentals than it has been in requiring safety features
to prevent claims, such as bunk-bed incidents. Some
insurers, like vacation rental insurer Proper Insurance,
won't insure a short-term rental with bunk
beds unless they meet the 2007 U.S. Federal Safety
Standards, and even then the insurer charges an
additional $100 per year premium per bunk bed.
Other insurers may not go to such lengths, however,
leaving many short-term rental owners with a false
sense of security that their rentals are safe enough,
since insurance companies are giving them little
feedback to address potential safety issues.
Government also poses challenges. The most
common cause of safety incidents in rentals are
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