I've booked 2 weeks in Mallorca (Soller) with AirBnb yet the owner lives in Palma. I don't know if she cleans the apartment herself or pays someone to do it. (she's told us that the key will be under the mat!)
I think that would be OK, you would just say the room was booked. It cropped up when my friend was explaining how she preferred to have couples rather than families. The guy said that if she had two rooms free they were open to all. It was when talking about targeted advertising. He did say it filled his rooms.
Interesting comment- what if I wanted to keep a room free for my kids for example
I stayed in Chambre d’Hote in the Pyrenees recently and the owner was saying how he got a lot of trade through AirBNB. He really rated it saying the only drawback was that if you had rooms free you could not refuse guests. This might pose a problem to people who are aiming for a particular type of client.
I would suggest you think about holiday lets 7-14 days or longer term lets and have some one local manage the change overs for a fee. Airbnb is more for couple of nights at a time, like a B&B
Good thought- problem is that I want to be here in summer so it would only be available as a gite (assume that's the right term) and I think pretty hard to rent at that time. I figure as an AirBND I could be there and make a small quid at the same time- but am worried there's no such thing as a free lunch.
Friends wanted me to turn the attic into a hostel but I am concerned that you would end up with a bunch of 20 year old beer swilling, bad singing, insomniac yobbos (as I was at that age  )
Thought of getting somebody local to see to it, for a fee, and let it out whilst you're gone?