Professionalisation of short-term rentals and emergent tourism gentrification in post-crisis Thessaloniki

Abstract

This paper contributes to research on short-term rentals (STRs), their suppliers and their impact on housing and the local community, focusing on Thessaloniki, a recessionary city off the tourist map until recently. Through the conduction of in-depth interviews with hosts and other key informants, and the analysis of quantitative data on Airbnb listings, I argue that: (1) far from enabling a sharing economy, Airbnb facilitates (re)investment in housing by different types of hosts. But investors outcompete amateur hosts and contribute to the professionalisation of STRs and the concentration of revenues. (2) the extraction of higher rents through STRs leads to the displacement of tenants and to gentrification in cities previously considered as ungentrifiable, driven by increased tourism and the short-term character of these rentals. However, the type and scale of investors involved, and the impact of gentrification are conditioned by contextual differences and the position of cities in the international competition to attract tourists.