I believe hotels are regulated and inspected? Not all taxes and regulations are invalid on principle.. Regulations on hotels, car services, and money transfers are usually sold on being in the best interest of the people - protecting their health, safety, and preventing them from being scammed.
That is the theory. However, these sorts of local business regulations are the kinds of things that I think you should be particularly skeptical of. A few points:
1. It's hard to imagine that there's a ton of democratic oversight over hotel regulation. Prior to AirBnB, did anyone EVER, in your life, suggest to you that you should be concerned about the specifics of hotel regulation in your town?
2. These are local laws. Smaller government components, like city, county, and state, are probably more vulnerable to being captured by medium or large businesses than the federal government is, due to less sophistication and professionalism of the politicians (especially) and bureaucrats (less so).
3. A big hotel has a lot of incentive to try to corrupt local regulation to quash competitors and shore up their business. It directly affects their bottom line.
4. These regulations have accreted over time, leading to complex regulations that have lots of loopholes and potentially anachronistic components to them.
