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“It’s unlikely you want to cradle your baby in a bed that gays were frolicking in before.”
MyLinker.ru, a Russian site for short-term lodging similar to Airbnb, recently began marketing itself to a specific clientele: anti-LGBT travelers and hosts.
MyLinker's site advertises listings in the “most hospitable cities.”
MyLinker is billing itself as a safe haven for hosts removed from Airbnb after that company’s anti-discrimination policy prohibited its users from turning guests away on the basis of their sexual orientation or gender identity.
MyLinker says hosts banned from Airbnb due to the policy in November have signed up for its service: “These owners came to us :-)”
Yuya Shino / Reuters
“We believe that the Western model of doing business on the short-term rental market, for example Airbnb, is not suitable for Russia because of the differences in mentality,” MyLinker project leader Svetlana Novikova said in a post on the company's website. “For this reason, we decided to do everything so that hosts and guests have all the necessary information about each other that will allow them to make the decision: to rent to a particular guest or not, to stay with a host or not.”
In addition to embracing anti-LGBT hosts banned from Airbnb, MyLinker created this “gay locator” to identify Russian cities with high levels of gay “activity.”
“Find out how many gays live in the cities of Russia! MyLinker conducted extensive research to find homosexuals, and how you can find out how many of them are located in any city.”
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