Airbnb a mixed blessing for Europe ’ s old cities
Buildings have been restored and property prices have leapt, but ‘ touristification ’ has forced out original residents
Bruno Romão owns one of the last traditional coffee shops in Alfama, Lisbon ’ s old district with its maze of narrow cobbled streets and intricate tiled facades. “All the others are now restaurants,” says one of the cafe regulars. Tourists want restaurants, she says, not just traditional Portuguese coffee.
So Romão has had to adapt. He recently opened a little dining space in a side room of his shop for holidaymakers looking for a place to eat.
Romão used to live close to his cafe, but after his divorce he moved out of Alfama. For him and for many citizens property prices have outpaced incomes.
Since the 1980s, Alfama ’ s population has shrunk from 20,000 to about 1,000 today, according to Luís Mendes, a geographer from the University of Lisbon and board member of the Lisbon Tenants Association. More than 55% of Alfama ’ s apartments are short-term rentals, he says, often let through sites such as Airbnb.
The rise of short-term lets has affected cities across southern Europe and has been blamed for driving up property prices and hollowing out economies in some of the world ’ s cultural capitals by promoting tourism above all else.
But platforms such as Airbnb and HomeAway have brought international investment to countries that, since 2012, have been recovering from the eurozone crisis. Airbnb says it has created new economic opportunities for millions of Europeans and, by its own count, added $100bn to the global economy in 2018. Many private investors have bought and renovated properties that were previously at risk of dilapidation, as Airbnb investments.
So, is the rise of short-term rental platforms destroying Europe ’ s cultural centres or helping to save them?
LISBON
In Portugal ’ s capital Mendes says the government was slow to react. “Airbnb grew and developed without restriction,” he says. “While San Francisco was imposing quotas, Lisbon was doing nothing.”
Mendes describes what happened in Lisbon as a “perfect storm ”. The economic crisis, which hit southern European cities particularly hard, left the city with a 20% decline in property prices from 2008 to 2013, and an unemployment rate of 17.5% in 2013.
Coupled with low global interest rates, the increasing availability of cheap flights and Lisbon ’ s rising popularity as a holiday destination, Portugal saw double-digit growth in tourist numbers every year from 2014 to 2017. The proliferation of properties listed on platforms such as Airbnb was inevitable.
Added to that, rental law reform in 2012 gave landlords freedom to end years-long contracts at below-market values and replace them with short-term ones.
The result, Mendes says, was that the availability of long-term rentals in Lisbon decreased 70% over the past five years, pushing many local residents like Romão to the suburbs or further out, back to the towns where they were born.
Meanwhile, property prices have grown rapidly in the past five years, with a 12% increase in the past 12 months, according to Marta Costa, head of research at Cushman & Wakefield ’ s division in Portugal. But growth may be cooling off, she says. “We are at maximum historic value and the potential for increase isn ’ t as strong.”
BARCELONA
The Spanish city has led the way in regulation among Mediterranean countries in an attempt to rein in Airbnb. Locals have protested about rising prices and antisocial behaviour by guests.
In Barcelona, the ratio of tourists to residents is five to one, compared with nine to one in Lisbon, according to the Institute for Tourism Planning and Development.
“As soon as town halls around Europe realised Airbnb was a double-edged sword, they set off to work out legal frameworks to push back,” says Fabiola Mancinelli of the University of Barcelona.
She says that in Barcelona and other Mediterranean cities, gentrification happens alongside “touristification ”: long-term residents are replaced by temporary ones. “It takes away the soul of the place and the social tissue that makes that place alive,” she adds.
FLORENCE
One in five properties in the historical centre is advertised as a short-term rental, according to researchers at the University of Siena. It is the highest concentration in Italy, more than Rome (12%) and Venice (11.8%).
For Diletta Giorgolo this is good news. Airbnb has been good for the market, “as there is now a greater incentive for foreign investors to buy properties in Florence as they know there is a good return on investment through rental yields ”, says the head of sales at Sotheby ’ s International Realty for central and southern Italy.
Higher rents have left local residents with little option but to move out. Sunia, the Florence branch of the national union of tenants, estimates that 1,000 Florentines leave the historical centre every year.
ATHENS
Noise, a carefree attitude to rubbish and general lack of care shown by the tourists make headlines. Lawsuits by affected neighbours pile in.
In April, a court in Thessaloniki banned a host from letting out her apartment on a short-term basis after a complaint was lodged by residents of the building where tourists held late-night parties and made the place feel unsafe.
“It comes down to urban etiquette,” says Iason Athanasiadis who rents out his apartments on Airbnb while travelling between his homes in Athens, Istanbul and Tunis.
He appreciates that the ethics of short-term rental platforms are not clear-cut. He is against investing purely for profit but argues the arrival of Airbnb was good for the city ’ s rundown inner districts, which saw violent demonstrations during the darkest days of the economic crisis.
“Many Greeks at that time didn ’ t want to live in the centre. There was a stigma attached to it,” he says.
In the early 2010s, as thousands of Athenians lost their jobs and were unable to pay their mortgages, many saw Airbnb as an opportunity to save their properties, especially in the face of higher taxes, says Ares Kalandides, professor of place management at Manchester Metropolitan University. However, about two years ago he noticed a change.
“International investors moved in and started buying overindebted apartments from the Greeks,” he says.
Airbnb says: “We take local concerns seriously and want to continue working with everyone to ensure homesharing continues to grow responsibly and sustainably, like we already have with more than 500 governments and organisations around the world.” /