Study: Airbnb hosts discriminate

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - A study from Harvard Business School found that African-American travelers trying to find a place to stay may have a tougher time getting an Airbnb rental than white ones.

Professor Michael Luca says his team created male and female profiles with stereotypical white and black names.  He said their study showed that profiles with names that are statistically more likely to be black people had a 15 percent lower acceptance rate than profiles with so-called white names.

Now, two new start-ups are targeting travelers of color in the wake of the Airbnb controversy. Noirbnb will launch this summer. And the similarly named Noirebnb (however this noire is spelled with an "e") is already up and running.

There is also a report of a transgender woman being turned away when she used Airbnb.

Airbnb told us it has a zero-tolerance for bias and prejudice.