In vacation destinations there are real estate companies that specialize in this. In the old days you would contact the local chamber of commerce for a referral, or look them up in the phone book. After that, there were websites like VRBO (still around, still works well). Now they put their stock onto AirBnB as well.

AirBnB did not invent short-term rentals. The parent is right that housing supply issues have a much deeper root cause than AirBnB.

There's interest in painting these strawmen by people who didn't use the service or just tried to get cheap stuff and didn't pick good places, which can happen with booking.com or google maps. The govs love blaming their failings on apps and regulations mean market capture by certain entities.

It's funny how you can call for Airbnb's to be banned to solve the housing crisis but you can't call for stopping hotels being built everywhere which are then used to house refugees/socially disadvantage people in a beautiful money making cycle for government contractors, to just name one thing happening in at least a few European countries.

The anti Airbnb narrative is tired and dishonest.