A tourist and Airbnb user walking past an anti-Airbnb poster in the Koukaki area of Athens, Greece, as anti-tourism short-term rental anger builds.
A massive 65,000 homes are among the first to be banned from short-term tourism rentals after Airbnb lost a court case, sparking global fallout amid worldwide housing shortages.
Backlash against Airbnb is growing amid the worst housing shortages that several countries have ever seen, including Australia where as many as 300,000 homes have been snapped up for the tourism market.
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Travel app Airbnb, has been ordered to take down thousands of Spanish listings – a move watched by other authorities.
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That backlash has translated into thousands of people protesting against tourists taking up housing in the past several months across Spain, where a government enquiry has seen demands made to Airbnb to take down listings, with warnings issued to local real estate agencies and corporations – watched by other authorities currently facing extreme housing pressure.
The Spanish ministry of social rights, consumption, and the 2030 agenda ordered Airbnb to block more than 65,000 illegal tourist accommodation listings on its platform – which the global refused to do with the matter ending up in court.
“The Spanish government’s ministry of social rights and consumer affairs has sent three resolutions in recent months to the multinational ordering the withdrawal of a total of 65,935 advertisements for tourist housing,” a translation of the ministry’s official statement said.
“Airbnb appealed the Consumer Protection Act in court, and now a ruling from the Madrid High Court on the first ruling supports the initiative of the Ministry.”
Around 5,800 tourist accommodation listings were among the first ordered to be removed immediately.
Search results from Basque Country, Spain, where there is growing anti-tourism rental anger. Source: Airbnb
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The matter has been building for months but Airbnb continues to refuse to take down the advertisements, drawing even further backlash – not just against the firm but sparking growing anti-tourist sentiment across Spain, watched on by the rest of the world.
In Australia, where Airbnb listings have gone as high as 300,000-plus, the global giant has denied any role in worsening housing affordability for locals, claiming a study it commissioned with Urbis found short-term rental accommodation “has no consistent impact on affordability” in the country.
“Therefore, other factors must be driving affordability outcomes in Australia,” an Airbnb statement said
A global storm against Airbnb is now raging with sites such as Reddit seeing heated debate: “This is happening all over the world. Airbnb really screwed up the housing situation in many countries. This is the first step to getting residents back into homes”.
Another Redditor said “next major step is to outlaw all the corps that specialise in buying homes for cheap then jacking up the prices or turning said homes into rentals” – a view which was supported by another user who said “corporations should not be in the rental business of SFH or condos. If they want to be part of the rental market, they should buy or build a rental building or hotel”.
Airbnb has denied it is causing housing unaffordability pressure in Australia.
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A Spanish government statement by consumer affairs minister Pablo Bustinduy said “these listings violate the regulations of the various autonomous communities where the Consumer Affairs Department has detected them”.
“In all cases, the listings are for entire tourist accommodations; no listings for individual rooms appear.”
The regions impacted were Andalusia, the Community of Madrid, Catalonia, the Valencian Community, the Balearic Islands, and the Basque Country, but the matter is set to widen with Mr Bustinduy’s goal is to “end the widespread lack of control and illegality of tourist accommodation, as well as to facilitate access to housing and protect consumer rights” with his officers also sanctioning large tourist apartment managers “for failing to correctly indicate the legal nature of the landlord”.
“These sanctioning procedures are ongoing regardless of the measures now announced. Furthermore, on March 27, a sanctioning procedure was also opened against a large real estate agency for abusive practices against tenants.”
The digital economy has seen a rapid surge in homebuyers choosing to rent property out short-term for significantly more than they can charge for longer term rentals.
The statement said the department was collaborating across various administrations to share information and offer technical assistance to boost the crackdown “and put an end to the thousands of illegal advertisements detected”.
The Spanish government requires that short term rental listings include the license or registration number of the firm offering the property. “This is mandatory in several regional regulations and is the most common violation in the advertising analysed.”
It also requires that such listings indicate the legal status of the landlords – “whether the landlords are professionals or individuals, a crucial factor in determining whether the person making the contract is protected as a consumer”.
It also said some of the listings had licence numbers that did not correspond to those issued by Spanish authorities, which it deemed misleading and deceptive against consumers.
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