Idk man. Sure I agree overtourism is an issue here in Europe, but this just reads like an ad for Airbnb. Sure Airbnb’s are more spread apart than hotels, but they’re still usually not owned by members of the smaller communities (afaik). They still syphon of income from an area, and help gentrify city centers. Maybe a real solution doesn’t involve another multinational huge company, instead focusing on small family businesses. A decentralized solution to spreading the impact of tourism, good as well as bad.
I agree it reads like a ad for Airbnb.
So, I get the feeling, or at least I hope that once Airbnb shares its data, its going to prove what we kind of already know, that Airbnb is out of control.
Lets take one of those cities in the article, Amsterdam.
I live in Europe, and what i noticed each time I visited;
- 12 years ago during summer, Airbnb existed, but wasn’t as popular. Amsterdam during peak season was crowded downtown, but still walkable. The Airbnb’s listed were peoples houses/apartments
- 8 years ago during summer, Hotels were fully booked, and Airbnb is more popular but there was space, the local shops downtown are still the same, but streets are getting more crowded. The Airbnb’s listed were a mix of peoples houses/apartments, and also some that looked purpose made as pseudo-hotels.
- 4 years ago during winter, The hotels are fully booked, and the airbnb’s were packed too. The streets were impossible to walk down, some of the local shops seemed to have changed to serving very tourist focused meals. The Airbnb listings look mostly like pseudo-hotels now.
The issue isn’t hotels, it’s Airbnb’s, it’s also not the weed or sex availability, it’s the fact that theres SO many Airbnb’s. If there was regulation around how many there were, or how often/long someone could list on Airbnb that would be great. If there was a cap on how many places were available to tourists, you could have more control on how many tourists.
I know Amsterdam tried to limit Airbnb, but eventually lost due to the rich people complaining and having the law overturned.
My point with this whole long post, is It’s getting worse.
Also, one more thing, you said “gentrify city centers”, and yes in general I agree, but I think the larger issue isn’t gentrification, but more that theres a loss of local culture or local things for tourist focused stores/things/etc … you can have gentrification but also keep the local spirit. It’s harder for sure.
As far as logistics are concerned, we already have models for how many people can comfortably fit in say a theme park. Similar models exist for maximum population density in a city. If we were to use such models to estimate a maximum tourist capacity within a city, dependant on public space, transit and other infrastructure, we could find a very reasonable limit for tourist accomodations.
Either way, the decision to impelment such limits should be a democratic one, for the whole city. Private companies don’t often care for the quality of life of the locals.
Change in a city is just as important as preservation imo, as long as the change is driven by the locals not a foreign for-profit actor. After all, at some point there’s barely any of the original city left to visit.
