European cities have long welcomed tourists, but a flood of real estate offered for short-term rent on Airbnb has pushed locals out of the housing market, according to critics. The historic districts have thus become places without a soul.
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According to management companies and landlords in Lisbon, Barcelona, Prague and Venice, some hosts replaced holidaymakers with medium- and long-term tenants during the collapse of tourism for a pandemic. Some moved into previously rented flats themselves or gave up those flats.
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A decrease of 22 percent
Data from analyst firm AirDNA showed that last month, the number of ads for accommodation via Airbnb for at least one night – whether booked or available – fell by 21.9 percent year on year in the 50 largest European cities.
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Airbnb says it has adapted to changes in travel as people begin to prefer smaller cities to tourist attractions. “At the end of 2020, we had more offers in France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic than at the end of 2019,” said spokesman Andreu Castellano.
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Some hosts in major European cities want to return to Airbnb when tourists return. However, others have left their business dependent on tourism forever.
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“If tourists came back faster, I wouldn’t decide. But I can’t start another year without knowing when the money will start coming in,” said Vanessa Rola, 40, who rented four apartments in Lisbon’s Graça district on accommodation sites including Airbnb. Without tourists she was unable to pay her own rent and is now terminating contracts.
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Hope for Venice
In Venice, AirDNA data for January from Airbnb and its rival Vrbo show a year-on-year decline in orders of 67 percent. Local activists are urging the government to seize the opportunity and help them, for example, by shortening the period for which properties can be rented through accommodation portals and converting empty flats into a low-cost housing program.
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“Before the pandemic, renting housing in Venice was almost impossible for normal people,” said Marco Gasparinetti of Gruppo 25 Aprile. According to him, short-term rentals are behind the rise in prices. The city with 60,000 inhabitants is normally visited by 20 million tourists a year.
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“30,000 people commute to Venice every day, but they can’t afford to live there. That could change now, and Venice could be something other than an open-air theme park for tourists,” added Gasparinetti.
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Twenty-two mayors of European cities wrote a letter to European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager last September to persuade accommodation portals to share data with the city administration, ensuring that “our neighborhoods are habitable.” Closures and restrictions on cross-border travel due to coviud-19, however, are doing the work for the authorities, at least for now, Reuters notes.
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Rents in Prague fell by 8 percent
According to the Inside Airbnb website, airbnb accommodation ads in Prague fell from more than 14,500 to less than 8,000 in the period from March to December. According to the development company Trigema, rents then fell by about eight percent.
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“Every month I lost 20 thousand dollars (445 thousand crowns) and the regulation made it even more complicated,” the landlord Ondřej complained to Reuters. He sold two apartments rented through Airbnb and subleased the other three.
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