Unfortunately, tenants do take advantage of landlord-tenant laws sometimes, and that is terrible. Savvy swindlers can use the system to their advantage.
Being hard to recover money from individuals has absolutely nothing to do with landlord-tenant law and everything to do with the fact most individual people don't have tens of thousands of dollars sitting around to pay legal judgements. You'd have these sorts of issues anytime you sue someone else for anything. Best case scenario is that the person who you are suing has the proper liability insurance that will pay the judgement for them. (Liability is included with homeowners insurance and renters insurance but doesn't usually cover intentional actions)
As far as making it easier to recover money. Since it is just another civil case, it would take a complete overhaul of civil court.
It sounds like you have never been a landlord. It's a five step process that takes at least two months just to evict someone in my landlord friendly state. I've heard it's worse in many other states. After that, it's possible to sue someone but that costs money and time and even after you do win it can take years to actually get your money and go through garnishment procedures once you track down their income. It's seldom worth the effort.
Yes most of the fault lies with AirBnb but being a distant landlord without a local property manager is crazy anyway. I sold my properties because the expense of getting a property manager or the hassle of managing it myself from across town wasn't worth it.