Travel less affordable to some, housing more affordable to others.

Yes please. I'm tired of not being able to afford living in my own city.

Is it really because of AirBnB?

Flats being rented on AirBnB is definitely competing with long term residents wishing to rent flats.

What is more visible as due to COVID this flats become available for a normal rental.

Obviously AirBnB, booking.com are only one of factors.

> Flats being rented on AirBnB is definitely competing with long term residents wishing to rent flats.

so are hotels, parking lots, malls, and everything else that take space right?

Partially yes, but AirBnB and similar caused widespread effect of flats and apartment buildings being turned into a hotels.

Residents of a city (via local government) may have some influence on hotel/mall/parking lot construction but this fails when anyone may buy apartments and starts hotel there anyway.

Those are regulated and taxed.

So? They still provide a downside. Regulation doesn’t make something instantly worth it.

So it makes sense for cities to limit and balance the down sides of short term rentals the same way they limit and balance the down sides of hotels, parking lots, and malls.

Partially AirBnB can be blamed. But one needs to also point to the elephant in the room, inflation.

Eurozone and US Central Bank policies are more-or-less "Cash is Trash" so markets react by throwing their savings at literally any asset that can, at least in theory, preserve value, including real estate.

I don't know, insofar as I don't have a view of who does what with each housing unit in the city, but I'd imagine to a large degree yes.

The apartment I'm renting would definitely be on AirBNB if it weren't for the pandemic. The owner told me that. Not a prime location, but access to multiple public transport options right across the street.

yes! unless you can call a 1 hour commute into the city still living in the same city.

yes to some places. there was an article on how all of the residential units in the town of Crested Butte, CO, are owned by people who don't line there and the units exist only for renting to tourists at this point.

Housing would become more affordable if you let people build more of it. Do EU city centers need to preserve every brick on every 400 year old horse shack?

Yes, that's what the AirBnB users are coming for... ;)

Has Airbnb driven down the cost of hostels? Anyone looking for cheap travel would be making a mistake if they're using Airbnb IME.

> Anyone looking for cheap travel would be making a mistake if they're using Airbnb IME.

Can you stay an entire month at a hostel? Usually not. It's also the end of the spectrum in terms of privacy, although there is couch surfing also.

You totally can. I have seen people living in them for months. To learn a language, or in party hostels to enjoy the summer. When I was young spending a few weeks in a hostel was my favorite way to spend time between house hunting in a new city.

You totally cannot in many hostels, maybe it's a thing in the US but I've been to many hostels in the world and some will limit your stay to a few days.

Just like AirBNB hosts.

At least there you have much more choices. I personally never ran into this doing airbnb.

> Can you stay an entire month at a hostel? Usually not

Yes, you can. You can probably negotiate a lower rate if you're staying that long or longer.

As I said elsewhere, it depends on the hostels, some will limit your stay to a few days.

Does it though? I’d assume that if supply is restricted. Demand goes down. Keeping prices relatively in check.

E.g. if Greece is the same price as south of France. People would just go to France.

Perhaps. As someone who travels relatively infrequently, I'm pretty price insensitive. Like I'm traveling. Who cares if one of those locations is 20% cheaper? I wonder of many people are like me. I doubt that people are very price sensitive when visiting landmark cities.

> if supply is restricted. Demand goes down

Luxury goods can behave oddly, but in general demand is independent of supply. Restricting supply causes prices to rise, which lowers demand (at that high price). The underlying demand (at the lower price) remains constant.

I've never been to France or Greece, but are they comparable destinations for a vacation? I was under the impression that a vacation in Athens will be warm and sunny, whereas Paris will likely be cloudy.

They probably meant the Mediterranean part of France (Marseille, Montpellier, etc), but yeah, that comparison seems a bit odd to me too.

Hotels have to hold up hygiene, pay taxes and are regulated as to where and how many beds.

Now people bought lifing flats and converted them to girls.

Home > travel

Prioritizing local vs temporary residents seems like the opposite of NIMBYism.