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Founder of Tampa home sharing platform questions Airbnb, NAACP partnership

 
Rohan Gilkes poses for a portrait at his home and business headquarters in Tampa. 

Innclusive, a Tampa-based start-up, is a home-sharing platform that focuses on providing a positive traveling experience for minorities. [CHARLIE KAIJO | Times]
Rohan Gilkes poses for a portrait at his home and business headquarters in Tampa. Innclusive, a Tampa-based start-up, is a home-sharing platform that focuses on providing a positive traveling experience for minorities. [CHARLIE KAIJO | Times]
Published July 27, 2017

TAMPA — A Tampa rival to Airbnb, which was launched because of discrimination complaints on the dominant home sharing platform, has concerns about the new partnership between Airbnb and NAACP announced this week.

"Having more diverse people in the sharing economy is a good thing," said Rohan Gilkes co-founder of Tampa-based Innclusive. "But either way, the issues of discrimination of Airbnb has not been solved on the platform."

"While one of the goals of the partnership is to attract more African American hosts, the issues that plague African American hosts on the platform such as having to charge less because of bias have not been fixed," he continued.

Airbnb, which has been plagued with allegations of discrimination for years, said the partnership will help increase opportunities for black communities to benefit from tourism and the home sharing economy.

Also outlined in the agreement, Airbnb will share 20 percent of the earnings from this effort with the NAACP. The two will also collaborate to improve Airbnb's workforce diversity initiative.

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Earlier this year, Harvard professor Ben Edelman found guests with African-American names were 16 percent less likely to be approved than guests with white names. He also found in 2014 that non-black hosts could charge 12 percent more than black hosts for the same rental space.

Contact Tierra Smith at tsmith@ tampabay.com or (414) 702-5006. Follow @bytierrasmith.