President-elect Donald Trump is well-known now for not only mixing his metaphors but also proclaiming one thing and then saying something else later.

Countless examples are being paraded in the mainstream and social media on a daily (probably hourly) basis as the controversial hotel magnate gets ready to take his seat in the Oval Office of the White House later this week.

Mexican border walls, trade agreements and Russian hacking aside, Trump could also make his presence felt in an area of the sector already riddled with controversy and strong opinions: Airbnb.

In October 2015, acknowledging the concept as “great for some people” and how landlords and consumers are “liking it a lot”, Trump told CNBC that regarding some kind of oversight of the Airbnb model: “I don’t like regulation.”

Still, he also said that if would not let renting happen in any of his buildings, adding: “Sometimes even if you say it can’t happen, you never know what people are doing behind your back”.

As anyone that has watched with the Brexit vote in the UK and the US election can atest, a year is a long time in politics – and power has the capacity to quickly alter a previously held point-of-view.

Chief operating officer at Rented, Mickey Kropf, recently outlined a series of ways that Trump could possibly reverse his hands-off stance on the likes of Airbnb et al – the theory being not only does the president-elect (“hotelier-in-chief”, as Kropf calls him) have a vast hotel empire of his own to protect but was also bankrolled by some big-wig hospitality figures.

“Much of Trump’s wealth is tied up in hotels, and he has much to lose from the growth of Airbnb.”

Add to this the hotel lobby groups that have sharpened their swords over Airbnb in recent years, and there is the potential for Trump to act.

Kropf argues that this could come in two forms: responding to public and industry pressure; and legal issues.

On outside pressure, he says:

“If we look to his recent corporate interventions, we can imagine the President-elect first providing public pressure on Airbnb to, in some material way, alter its legal framework that has enabled it to become the largest hospitality company in the world without owning a single hotel.

“That is to say, Trump may pressure Airbnb to move from marketplace to hotelier.

“Whether Trump goes that far or not, he could certainly request that Airbnb further hamstring itself nationwide with corporate standards on rental caps, host and booking data exchanges with government, and cooperation with enforcement agencies as Airbnb has done recently in cities like San Francisco and New Orleans.”

On the legislative angle, Kropf beleives Trump could increase Airbnb’s “costs of compliance” by changing part of the Civil Rights Act, essentially the part allows lodging entrepreneurs to discriminate against guests – an issue the Rented exec believes has recently dogged Airbnb.

Another area is with safety measures, such as fire systems, or legal orders for provision over disabled access to properties.

He concludes:

“Time will tell if Airbnb winds up in the billionaire President’s crosshairs, but the signs seem to point that way.”

NB: Read the full analysis here.