Airbnb finds love in Lisbon after it phases out rent control but Berlin shies away
ON HIS way to work, Lisbon Mayor Fernando Medina likes to count the dwindling number of empty buildings.
Thanks to a tourism and real estate boom, many are being converted into trendy apartments that cater to the growing number of visitors to the city.
As some European cities impose restrictions on short-term rentals via websites such as Airbnb to keep housing affordable and protect residents from noisy visitors, Lisbon is taking steps to make it easier. Government measures including phasing out rent controls and selling hundreds of those empty buildings at public auctions have helped support a rebirth of the city.
“This is the first time that tourism is allowing many people to participate in the development process of the city,” Medina, 43, said.
“We shouldn’t be scared of this new dynamic, we shouldn’t be afraid of growth. On the contrary, we need to prepare the city to take in even more tourists.”
While Lisbon currently requires all hosts to register their units as short-term rentals, it allows them to rent out their properties for an unlimited amount of nights per year.
That’s less restrictive than the 90 nights allowed in London and 60 in Amsterdam for private owners. All three cities are still more welcoming than Barcelona – which stopped giving out shortterm letting permits in 2014 – and Berlin, which all but banned the practice in May for landlords who want to rent out their entire properties to tourists.
The difference between Lisbon and those cities is that the Iberian capital needs the visitors. Two years after exiting its financial bailout, unemployment is still at a staggering 12 per cent and tourism is an increasingly important part of the economic recovery.
The number of nights spent by foreign tourists in the city known for its yellow trams rambling through cobblestone streets increased 21 per cent in March from the same month last year.
Airbnb’s listings in the Lisbon metropolitan area nearly tripled since January 2014. The boom is turning homeowners into hoteliers and actors into concierges, while lining the country’s coffers with the 15 per cent tax it collects on each booking.
“Portugal is one of the leaders in Europe addressing the regulation of the sharing economy,” Andreu Castellano, Airbnb’s public relations manager for Spain and Portugal, said in an email.
Getting others to follow Lisbon’s lead will be critical to Airbnb’s success in Europe. The region generated about US$3 billion in revenue for its hosts last year and accounts for more than half of both the site’s travellers and landlords, the San Francisco-based company’s Chief Technology Officer, Nathan Blecharczyk, said May 24 in Amsterdam.