Current state and development of Airbnb accommodation offer in 167 countries

ABSTRACT

The paper examines the size, structure, distribution, dynamics, and use of Airbnb accommodation offer in 167 countries. Web-scrapping Airbnb website in fall 2018 and 2019 resulted in a datasets on 5.7 million listings, including 3.6 million active listings which have been rented out (reviewed) during the last year. Listings are divided into four groups based on types of properties and numbers of offers hosted by one platform user. The results show that the platform is most commonly used to rent out entire apartments by multi-hosts. The numbers of Airbnb listings in countries depend on the level of economic development and size of inbound tourism. One third of Airbnb supply is located in big cities, another one third near seacoasts. Airbnb offer grows most quickly in its relatively new markets, while in primary urban destinations of some European countries it is stable or decreases. The offer of professional hosts is growing more quickly than of peer-to-peer hosts. Differences in the frequency of use and prices of listings exaggerate the geographical unevenness in benefits and impacts of Airbnb activity. Airbnb supply is not a uniform segment of tourist accommodation and its effects on destinations should be considered in relation to territorial context.

KEYWORDS:

• Airbnb
• peer-to-peer accommodation
• sharing economy
• platform economy
• short-term rentals
• professional hosts

Acknowledgements

The author thanks Dieter Müller and C. Michael Hall for valuable comments and suggestions on the earlier versions of the text.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.