You can do the research if you really want to (I don’t), but I think the mere presence of a code, and some enforcement (however lackluster), would nonetheless serve as gentle encouragement for hosts in the area to “do better”.
I don’t think any municipality expects a regulation like that to be an overnight fix, but the start of a long few decades of back-and-forth negotiations with homeowners. And they’re not exclusively for the sake of travelers, but also neighbors, local renters (who cannot compete with tourist wallets), etc.
Maybe not late/last-minute bookings, but very many places can accept late arrivals. The last dozen or so times I’ve stayed at an Airbnb, they all had programmable keypad locks and the host just sends you the code, so you can arrive whenever you please.
Yes, usually smaller local ones that don’t have name recognition. They would cross-list their rooms on their own site, on Airbnb, on Expedia, Tripadvisor, etc., so that travelers can find them.
Sometimes this results in an accidental overbookings where the same room was booked by different people on different sites, and a staff person has to sort it out (and refund the overbooked travelers). This sucks for you as the rejected booker, of course.
Edit: Oh, and sometimes you get a block of rooms or properties managed by a vacation rental company instead, with professional management, check-in, cleaning, etc. They don’t have a front desk the way a hotel does, but usually there’s a 24/7 contact number (or WhatsApp, abroad) and they’re on hand to resolve any issues that may arise. When we were in Rome we stayed in one such place, literally across the street from the Colosseum’s front door, and it was fine. Cheaper than any hotel in the area by quite a bit, with unbeatable walkability.
I have just one AirBnB experience to report. We stayed at a place in the Great Smokies last year. The cabin and its facilities were as promised, the price was reasonable, the owner (who had excellent reviews) communicated well beforehand and it was a good experience. We took our pet wildebeest, Pluto (with permission) and he had a nice fenced mini-yard in which to experience Nature.
I don’t know when/if we’ll be using the service again, but it worked out well.
Ha, just to make things more amusing, I thought I’d tell the story of our one bad experience.
We had already rented once in the Skagit plain of Washington, and it was a wonderful farmhouse, nice and homey and comfortable. When we looked to rent again at a later date, that farmhouse wasn’t available, but there was one nearby that looked great online. It was a clapboard old place, out in the middle of farmland. The furniture as pictured looked a bit cutesy for our tastes, kind of grandma-tchochke, but nothing we couldn’t put up with, given the location.
The place turned out to be the home of an ultra-religious elderly lady who lived in the place but vacated it when guests came. All the furniture was kitschy shabby-chic Victorian, with trinkets and lace and dolls on every available surface. All the closets and dressers were stuffed with fabric and cards and clothes. The fridge was full of stale food and the outside of it was plastered with pictures of religious events and missionary people. Bible sayings were framed and hung everywhere. And the isolation of the place made it feel like Robert Mitchum as that evil preacher was going to stake it out.
There was nothing visibly wrong with the place, but we are not religious people and the place was just very off-putting for us. My husband in particular was raised by Baptist evangelists, and rejected them and their teachings as a young man, so it really gave him the heebie-jeebies. It made me want to make our next stay in the most modern, minimalist home possible just to shake off the impression of that house.
We’ve used something similar to Airbnb here in Japan and in Taiwan.
For the most part it’s been alright and no problems with room charges that are less than hotels. There is one place we’ve stayed at several times that is really a good deal for us. The owners are really cool and it’s been a good experience.
However, last year we had a problem with a room in that the heater wasn’t working (not fun in Hokkaido) and they struggled to take care of it.