Luxury hotels demand action on Airbnb competition
FLAT-SHARING websites may have originated as a cheap form of tourism, but in Paris they are evolving into a luxury niche – to the irritation of the city’s hoteliers.
The managers of the most prestigious hotels have complained that their well-heeled guests are increasingly tempted by posh private flats that cost more than €1000 a night.
The likes of the ultra-chic Bristol Hotel and equally refined Plaza Athenee are demanding government action to clamp down on sites such as Airbnb, which they accuse of being unfair competition.
Exacerbating the hotels’ plight is a downturn in bookings as concern over terrorism and antiSemitism drives away wealthy visitors.
The online flat-sharing concept, which emerged in the United States, has become hugely popular in France as locals strive for additional income in the economic crisis.
Paris has about 50,000 flats on Airbnb’s site, up from 7000 across the whole of France in 2012, and more than any other city, including New York.
Last summer, the number of travellers who stayed in Airbnb accommodation in Le Marais, a trendy district, outnumbered the residents. Some 66,320 people rented homes via the service during the summer, slightly more than the 64,795 people who live there, according to 2012 figures.
Airbnb’s success is ruffling French feathers. Ian Brossat, who heads the housing committee on Paris council, says it is fuelling a housing shortage because flats are being taken off the traditional market and turned into holiday rentals.
Under French law, owners can rent their main home to tourists for up to four months a year. Beyond that, they are supposed to buy another flat of the same size to put on the ordinary rental market.
However, Brossat says that many owners rent their flats out all year round on Airbnb or similar websites without buying a second one.
Last year, 20 people were fined for this offence. The number of offenders is likely to be higher this year following an operation in Le Marais this spring to find unauthorised Airbnb flats.
Ordinary French hotels have long complained about competition from flat-sharing schemes. Now luxury establishments are protesting too. They point out that there are about 400 Airbnb properties in Paris that cost more than €500 a night.
One 51 square metre flat, near the Parc Monceau, can be rented for €1700 a night. Another, with four bedrooms, near Saint Germain des Pres, costs €1000 a night.
Didier le Calvez, the chief executive of the Bristol Hotel, who also heads up the luxury branch of the French Hotel Union, said that competition from flat-sharing sites was unfair.
He said that Airbnb flat owners paid lower taxes and faced less red tape than hotels and that his union was drawing up a list of demands to submit to the government ‘‘so that the rules of the game are better balanced’’.
Middle Eastern visitors have been shunning Paris after the terrorist attacks in January – takings at the Bristol Hotel fell by 20 per cent in the first half of this year compared with last year.
‘‘The industry is suffering,’’ said le Calvez, who added that rich Americans were staying away because of a ‘‘feeling of latent antiSemitism in France’’.