Politicising platform-mediated tourism rentals in the digital sphere: Airbnb in Madrid and Barcelona

Abstract

Both short-term tourism rentals and the digital platforms that manage and mediate them have expanded enormously in recent years, against a backdrop of increasing platform urbanism and platform capitalism. This expansion triggers transformations that are contributing to acute negative externalities never envisaged within the original ethos and sustainability promises of the sharing economy. The severe knock-on effects of the unanticipated reconfiguration of economic and everyday life have met with a strong civic response, leading to a growing politicisation of platform-mediated rentals increasingly performed in the digital sphere. Numerous social movements have arisen in opposition to platforms such as Airbnb, while lobbyists and user collectives have also mobilised to defend their respective rights to ‘home-share’ and generate extra income, as the business becomes increasingly professionalised in large cities. Through the lens of the increasingly politicised and polemical impacts of the platform economy, this article analyses Twitter narratives and counter-narratives surrounding Airbnb-mediated rentals and their impact on Madrid and Barcelona. Findings show how narratives are choreographed by a range of actors and that narrative ecosystems emerge in the form of interconnected virtual relationship networks, often embedded in translocal assemblages.

Keywords:

• Airbnb-mediated rentals
• platform economy
• translocal assemblage
• narrative and counter-narrative
• social protest and resistance movements
• social network analysis

Acknowledgement

The authors are particularly grateful to Salvador Anton Clavé, Hug March and the anonymous reviewers for their insightful comments.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This research was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (reference: G60667813, programme: Retos de la Sociedad) and the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC interdisciplinary research projects).

Notes on contributors

Julie Wilson

Dr Julie Wilson (corresponding author) is Associate Dean for Research of the Faculty of Economics and Business and member of the NOUTUR Research Group at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona. She was the winner of the 2019 Roy Wolfe Award (American Association of Geographers, AAG) and is currently Chair of the International Geographical Union (IGU) Commission on Tourism, Leisure and Global Change. Her research interests include the role of tourism in the transformation and socio-spatial evolution of place (urban and rural), the role of culture and creativity in sustainable tourism and evolutionary economic geography approaches to urban and regional development.

Lluís Garay-Tamajon

Dr Lluís Garay is Associate Professor at Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC), Barcelona. His main areas of research interest concern diverse forces transforming the tourism activity, particularly the collaborative, co-creative, sustainable and responsible processes causing disruptive impacts on urban and rural socio-economic environments and organizations. Lluís is the coordinator of the NOUTUR research group (UOC) which aims to analyse the impacts that tourism and leisure activities are causing within the contexts of destinations (territories), organisations (both business and non-business) and consumption patterns (both tourists and residents).

Soledad Morales-Perez

Dr Soledad Morales Pérez is Associate Professor of Economics and Business Studies at the Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) and member of the UOC tourism research group, NOUTUR. At present, her research interests include the analysis of collaborative economies in socio-spatial transformations of tourism spaces, new narratives and measurement of tourist sustainability, and event tourism impacts in public space.