Mapping the effects of COVID-19 on Airbnb: Evidence from European cities

ABSTRACT

This article focuses on the evaluation of the temporal and spatial effects of COVID-19 on Airbnb’s supply and demand in 40 cities from 17 European countries in four regions. In terms of supply, hosts followed a wait-and-see strategy by the availability was set to 0 in the first pandemic wave, and with the second wave, the sharing activities were completely terminated by closing profiles. Hosts with entire homes and multiple listings were more willing to use calendars actively and more reluctant to close profiles than hosts with private rooms and single listings. Moreover, especially in the second half of 2020, listings in Northern, Western, and Eastern Europe suffered significant losses, while hosts in Southern Europe more actively used calendars. Airbnb demand was even more adversely affected, and the demand preferences were directed towards entire homes, where social distance might have been easier and better maintained between peers, and multiple listings, that might have been more professionally managed due to commercial concerns. Considering the dependence of entire homes and multiple listings hosts on income from sharing activities, it is thought that they may have been more affected by potential income losses than hosts with private rooms and single listings.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• peer-to-peer accommodation
• tourism geography
• Airbnb
• Europe

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Ege University Planning and Monitoring Coordination of Organizational Development and Directorate of Library and Documentation for their support in editing and proofreading service of this study. We would especially like to thank Prof. Dr. Şevket Işık, for his contribution in the data evaluation process. We would like to express our gratitude for the comments, suggestions and criticisms of Prof. Dr. Gürhan Aktaş and Dr. İlkay Südaş. Finally, we also would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers who made significant contributions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in [Inside Airbnb] at [http://insideairbnb.com/get-the-data.html].

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2023.2254780

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Research Fund of the Ege University Project Number: SGA-2021-22657.

Notes on contributors

Ersin Demir

Ersin Demir is a PhD candidate in Human Geography. His main research interests are: tourism geography, sharing economy, peer-to-peer accommodation, CouchSurfing and Airbnb. He is currently working as a research assistant in the Department of Geography at Ege University.

Volkan Zoğal

Volkan Zoğal is PhD candidate in Human Geography. He received his master’s degree in 2016 and continues his PhD dissertation at Ege University Graduate School of Social Sciences, Human and Economic Geography Program. His main research interests are: tourism geography, second home tourism, sharing economy, peer-to-peer accommodation and Airbnb. He is currently working at the Ege University Geography Department as a research assistant.

Mehmet Şirin Yelsiz

Mehmet Şirin Yelsiz is PhD candidate in the Department of Spatial Planning and Design. His main research interests are: GIS and spatial analysis. He is currently working as a research fellow in the Department of Spatial Planning and Design at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University

Gözde Emekli

Gözde Emekli is a professor in the Department of Geography at Ege University since 2016. She is author of several papers on cultural geography, second home tourism, creative tourism, cultural heritage, rural studies and other urban cultural tourism studies. She is also reviewers for several journals including International Journal of Geography and Geography Education, Aegean Geographical Journal, Turkish Journal of Geographical Sciences, Turkish Geographical Review. Currently, she gives lectures on Tourism Geography, Urbanization in Turkey, Research Methods in Human Geography, European Union and Alternative Tourism Opportunities in Turkey for undergraduate and postgraduate students.