Abstract
The rising number of homes and apartments rented out through Airbnb and similar peer-to-peer accommodation platforms cause concerns about the impact of such activity on the tourism sector and property market. To date, spatial analysis on peer-to-peer rental activity has been usually limited in scope to individual large cities. In this study, we take into account the whole territory of Spain, with special attention given to cities and regions with high tourist activity. We use a dataset of about 250 thousand Airbnb listings in Spain obtained from the Airbnb webpage, aggregate the numbers of these offers in 8124 municipalities and 79 tourist areas/sites, measure their concentration, spatial autocorrelation, and develop regression models to find the determinants of Airbnb rentals’ distribution. We conclude that apart from largest cities, Airbnb is active in holiday destinations of Spain, where it often serves as an intermediary for the rental of second or investment homes and apartments. The location of Airbnb listings is mostly determined by the supply of empty or secondary dwellings, distribution of traditional tourism accommodation, coastal location, and the level of internationalization of tourism demand.
Highlights
Internet platforms enabling short-term rental of private houses or rooms, called peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation or homesharing platforms, are an increasingly popular provider of tourist accommodation
Similar conclusions about the impacts of Airbnb on urban space have been presented in cases of other Spanish cities: Madrid [16,58], Palma de Mallorca [22,59] and Valencia [60]
Spatial analyses of the Airbnb offer have been conducted for Barcelona [33], Málaga [61], Madrid [58], Valencia [60,62] and in the form of comparative studies including various cities [32,63]
Summary
Internet platforms enabling short-term rental of private houses or rooms, called peer-to-peer (P2P) accommodation or homesharing platforms, are an increasingly popular provider of tourist accommodation. An interesting body of research focuses on the spatial analysis of the available offer [32,33,34,35] It allows for a geographical understanding of the phenomenon by providing insight about where it is located and which are the factors that affect its distribution. This knowledge can help to answer the big research questions that have been posed regarding urban vacation rentals and Airbnb: are P2P platforms a competition to the traditional hotel sector or do they complement its offer? Are urban vacation rentals commercialised through P2P platforms contributing to the touristification of city centres? Is it a phenomenon only affecting tourist cities?
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