More than anything, NIMBY neighbors keep killing less expensive forms of housing... 100's of homes, I would say, in the time since I started observing the situation.
STR's make for a convenient bogeyman that people can point their finger at. It's a bit more disturbing when you realize it's actually your neighbors; kind, ordinary people in most regards.
STRs just slipped past the NIMBYs because they weren't on the lookout for it; it won't happen again!
The government has said they're going to start tackling the issue of short term lets this month. I'll believe it when I see it.
He could rent them out, but the long term rent contracts would not net him the same amount in a year than what he gets in just the summer months. Plus, long term contracts have a lot of other expectations from him as a land lord, whilst Airbnb is pretty chill.
From his point of view, airbnb is amazing, from my point of view when I was searching for a flat, I wanted to stab him in the face. It is what it is.
But pre-covid Airbnb was about 10% of the total stays versus Hotels. And tourists in total were about 6% of the overnight population throughout the year on average, again the majority in hotels. And after corona this is a lot less due to new legislation (which caps it to max 30 days per year without a hotel license).
But yes, tourism obviously pushes up prices, but there's a big benefit to the local economy of course as well.