Platforms corresponding to Airbnb deliver pleasure to tons of of hundreds of vacationers worldwide. They provide a “home-like” vacationer lodging, starting from small rooms in personal houses to high-end dream villas in idyllic places. Nevertheless, what brings happiness to some has precipitated unhappiness to others.
The actions of those platforms have reached an unprecedented scale in most cities and vacationer resorts worldwide, resulting in important deregulation of the normal long-term rental market. This has negatively impacted residents, resulting in a scarcity of rental provide, elevated rents, and difficulties in housing for residents and college students. Moreover, vacationer overcrowding, noise, nocturnal disturbances, and numerous degradations have change into frequent in well-known cities and seaside resorts, resulting in a number of adverse penalties for a lot of European international locations.
Eurostat acknowledged the European short-term vacationer rental market skilled a 28.3% improve within the first quarter of 2024. This knowledge displays the variety of nights booked on-line by Airbnb, Reserving, Expedia, and TripAdvisor platforms. In response to those developments, the European Parliament actively enhances transparency and regulation between vacationer rental platforms and native authorities throughout numerous EU international locations.
Barcelona – the Finish of Rental Vacationer Lodging in Sight?
Barcelona is going through important challenges as a result of affect of furnished vacationer leases. Town has skilled a pointy improve in hire costs, a surge in mass tourism, and antagonistic results on its surroundings, heritage, and native companies. To handle these points, town’s mayor, Jaume Collboni, has introduced plans to ban the rental of roughly 10,000 Airbnb lodging by 2029. The municipality will revoke these properties’ vacationer licenses by the tip of 2028 to make them accessible for long-term leases and gross sales.
For London and Amsterdam, the Days Are Numbered
The capitals of the UK and the Netherlands have restricted renting vacationer lodging. In London, all lodging are restricted to 90 nights per 12 months throughout the capital and its fast suburbs, whereas there is no such thing as a restrict for rooms in personal houses. Curiously, this measure was carried out by the Airbnb platform itself in 2017 to “make it simpler for London hosts to behave within the curiosity of all.”
Equally, in Amsterdam, the restrict on the variety of in a single day stays was initially set at 60 days however has been lowered to 30 days per 12 months since 2019, once more in settlement with the Airbnb platform. Moreover, seasonal lodging in Amsterdam can solely host as much as 4 individuals at a time, aside from households with two youngsters. Town additionally requires house owners to acquire a allow and a registration quantity to hire their lodging seasonally.
Italy, from Native Restrictions to Nationwide Motion Plan
Whereas Italian cities affected by excessive vacationer numbers, corresponding to Rome, Florence, and Milan, have been content material to restrict Airbnb-type leases of their historic facilities, the Italian authorities additionally desires to legislate on the nationwide degree to manage short-term vacationer leases. A draft legislation was printed final 12 months. It’s based mostly particularly on two measures:
The 2-night minimal keep requirement initially applies to cities with a excessive vacationer density, corresponding to Bari, Bologna, Cagliari, Catania, Florence, Genoa, Messina, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Reggio Calabria, Rome, Turin, and Venice. This requirement will then be prolonged to different vacationer municipalities in Italy.
The requirement is to own a nationwide identification code as a substitute of a regional one for numerous short-term lodging institutions.
