Airbnb, Platform Capitalism and the Globalised Home

Abstract

Airbnb, the most ubiquitous of the many online short-term rental platforms offering residential homes to tourists, has infiltrated local neighbourhoods and housing markets throughout the world. It has also divided policy-makers and communities over whether tourism in residential homes is a benign example of the so-called ‘sharing’ economy or a malignant practice which destroys neighbourhoods. These differing positions reflect alternative and changing notions of ‘home’ within wider processes of financialisation and platform capitalism. This paper examines these themes with reference to stakeholder statements solicited in response to government inquiries on how to regulate short-term rental housing in Australia.

Platform—driven housing commodification, financialisation and gentrification in Athens

“…Clalncy (2020), along with Cocola-Gant and Gago (2021), associate STR-driven financialization with the introduction of new actors, more particularly investors who, through by-to-let practices, remove properties from the conventional rental market in order to benefit from the rent gap between the traditional and the short-term rental markets. In the same vein, Gurran and Shrestha (2021) argue that STRs challenge conventional understandings of home and home-making by introducing new stakeholders beyond households, while they enable financialization through increasing the demand for 'housing as investment'. Especially in countries which, following the implications of the 2008 financial crisis (e.g., Portugal and Greece), turned to tourism as a solution, ideal conditions for the engagement of small and medium investors but also managerial companies and large, international investors were created by central and local governments, while the professionalization of the market enabled opportunities for the financialization of housing through the "the allocation of interest-bearing capital in tourism-oriented real estate" (see Jover & Cocola-Gant, 2022).…”

Climate (of) change: the promise and perils of technology in achieving a just transition

“…This reduces the need for new construction and can help address housing affordability in popular tourist destinations. However, these platforms can also contribute to gentrification and displacement, as the influx of tourists and short-term renters can drive up housing prices and exacerbate inequalities (Gurran and Shrestha, 2021; Wachsmuth and Weisler, 2018). For instance, Airbnb has reduced the amount of rental accommodation in cities, thus leading to increased rental prices.…”

Analyzing the influence of short-term rental platforms on housing affordability in global urban destination neighborhoods

“…In the case of Airbnb, this was impacting the activity of many hosts (Sequera, 2020), who were considering closing or redirecting their offer to the residential housing market. Nevertheless, although some tourism scholars predicted a potential fall in investor-hosted listings of STAP, with the pandemic under relative control by the end 2020, demand for short-term accommodation rentals resurged (Gurran, N., & Shrestha, 2021) and the company’s revenue was again increasing. In this context, Airbnb founder Brian Chesky announced that the company’s future strategy would focus on independent hosts (as opposed to large operators) and put more emphasis on developing listings in less populated areas.…”