Traveller letters: Dubious Airbnb booking leaves travellers in doubt

LETTER OF THE WEEK

We recently booked two apartment stays through Airbnb for the first time. Thirty-six hours before we were due in Tokyo we got an email from "the owner" telling us not to turn up at the apartment, but to be at a certain Tokyo station exit at 7.30pm where he would meet us and that he had booked a hotel for us. That was our only communication. Not knowing whether we had a bed for the week, that night or at all and not knowing what the owner looked like and having paid for the week through Airbnb we were a little apprehensive. But, though 15 minutes late, the owner did turn up. We gathered he'd been subletting his apartment through Airbnb for over a year, but his landlord had just found out and evicted him. However, he booked us into a hotel in the same area for a week which, while budget, was fine and must have left him at least $200 out of pocket. Although his emails were going through Airbnb, they did not involve themselves in any this, and had it not been for his goodwill, it could have become very complicated and stressful, and I do not know where we stood legally, had we not been happy with the alternative accommodation.

John Moffat

GEOGRAPHY LESSON

Cancelling your safari to Kenya is like cancelling your holiday to the Whitsundays if there was an outbreak of Ebola in Perth. Yet Australian travellers are cancelling their safaris to East and Southern Africa and it is wreaking havoc on Africa's tourism industry. The Ebola outbreak in Africa is the worst in history, and has been dominating our headlines, but Africa – the continent – is enormous. It is the size of China, India, the US and many countries in Europe combined and the Ebola outbreak is currently only in West Africa: Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone [and Mali]. The distance from these outbreaks to cities such as Nairobi or Johannesburg is more than 5300 kilometres. That's further than Sydney to Honolulu (5078 kilometres). I urge travellers to rethink cancelling their once-in-a-lifetime dream trip to Africa. Traditional safari destinations are all Ebola-free and the safari operators, communities and wildlife need your support.

Sarah Hoyland, The Classic Safari Company

OUTER LIMITS

I'm not sure where Sandra Alexander (Traveller letters, October 25-26) was staying, but it can't have been central Paris, as Paris Gare du Nord is at worst an easy 40-minute RER ride from Charles de Gaulle Airport (only 25 minutes if you take an express train). Please don't spend your last night in Paris at the airport hotel. Choose a hotel in walking distance of an RER Line B station (somewhere in the Latin Quarter near St Michel and Notre Dame would be my pick) and you'll have a quick transfer to the airport, with no traffic and no hassle. Plus, you can have an extra breakfast in Paris – surely preferable to a night in an anonymous hotel in the outer industrial suburbs.

Samantha Forge

PHARAOH ENOUGH