The Airbnb Invasion of Barcelona
newyorker.com
newyorker.com
Maybe travellers to Barcelona are a little too confident in Airbnb and don't consider the alternatives?
But if you're a group of 5-8, or an extended stay, I could see how Airbnb could become cheaper.
In theory, hotels should have a significant advantage over Airbnb. They can leverage economies of scale and are usually located in more tourist oriented areas of the city. I think the issue was that sort of like taxis hotels operated in a closed market and were competing against other hotels - sure motels existed but they were on the total other end of the cost-quality spectrum. They invested in fancy bars, and other stuff most people don't care about.
Then, Airbnb comes along and now you could pay a fraction of the cost of a hotel and have much better lodgings. It's worth scrutiny to see what percentage of Airbnb listings are operated full time vs. actually operating them in a sharing-econony fashion. But at a fundamental level, if Airbnb is growing so much we also need to examine why standard hotels aren't working.
Such a dream will likely have to remain deferred, however, because obviously no such technologies exist.
This assertion makes no sense. Barcelona is covered by an excelent public transportation network, including national, regional, and commuter railway services right in the city center, and there are entire blocks that are still unocuppied or including vacant old warehouses.
Barcelona's main problem is its populist government that uses anti-tourism political stunts to cater to radical socialist and anarchist pressure groups while screwing with the local's lives.
This sad political state of affairs only serves the interests of incumbent hotel operators and real estate speculators by ensuring that their past investments remain exceptionally proffitable and no competitor can enter the market to pick up the slack. Radical anti-tourism anarchist groups play the role of useful idiots to help preserve this state of affairs, but the real source of the problem is quite obvious, and so is the solution: allow the construction of new high-capacity hotels and provide incentives to maximize hotel occupancy, such as taxing vacant hotel rooms, so that repurposing apartments as pseudo-hotel rooms ceases to be an attractive investment.
Until this problem is actually understood, instead of blindly swallowing political propaganda, it won't simply go away,no matter how much noise and publicity stunts anarchist groups make regarding this issue.
Only because it's a tax dodge.
The people that want 'tourism dollars' are not the same as those who want affordable rent in the city they were born and raised.
The key issue (at least in Europe) is that Airbnb has reduced the access barrier of landlords to a tax avoindance revenue stream.
If you are sharing a room in your house in the summer that's a side gig. If you are buying flats left and right and giving them to an agent to manage you Airbnb reservations then that is just a Hotel without the regulations and upfront costs and taxes that should come with it.
A tourist license could be had for a one time €200 fee before, and apartments with these licenses are actually often 20 to 30% higher in purchase price than those without.
Hotels are also actively lobbying against the further handing out of these licenses (because Airbnb rental apartments tend to be much better value for money -- even if you run everything legally and by the book). There are always two sides to a story.
This baseless assertion is patently false. AirBnB is only a middlemen in a business that's heavily legislated and monitored by both law enforcement and pressure groups. Local governments award and manage permits for local housing which are based on quotas, and in some jurisdictions actually force tax rates close to 30%.
Running an Airbnb is insanely profitable for the tenant and it is pretty much hell for everyone else living next to it. Ask neighbours of Airbnbs, they will all complain that it brings a lot of noise, people partying in the middle of the night etc.
My solution to this is that the cities should tax Airbnbs at a very high level. Probably upwards of 50%. There is a reason why hotels are built in specific places in cities, and why they have a frontdesks etc.
The same law also states that a flat cannot go unrented for longer than 3 months. You would also need a permit here.
As far as I understood it, the problem here is enforcement/execution, which is basically Berlins root problem.
Even if they were motivated to do this, it would simply wipe out a very large percentage of rooms available which would make zero business sense for airbnb.
This is again more evidence of the lack of sustainability of their business model in the current form factor.
It's a little unfair to point the blame solely at Ryanir. The Spanish flagship airline, Iberia, also has a low-cost wing: Vueling, based in Barcelona and established in 2004.
In the US, we've also found that extended stay hotels work well. They tend to have a lot more room, a kitchen, etc.
We've had problems booking hotels in Europe because Expedia or Booking.com will say one thing (5 in a room? No problem!) and when we arrive the hotel thinks it's a big problem (only 4 to a room, you must rent another room).