IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/frz/wpaper/wp2023_10.rdf.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Airbnb and the City: Comparative Analysis of Short-Term Rentals policies in Florence (Italy)

Author

Listed:
  • Taylor Higgins
  • Federico Martellozzo
  • Filippo Randelli

Abstract

This work aims at investigating and problematizing the effectiveness of regulating short term rental (STR) in the housing sector, by comparing 9 different policies applied in a matching number of cities worldwide. The research focuses on the municipality of Florence, and takes it as a ground zero case study, given that so far regulamentation and monitoring policies in Italy have been absent or at least negligible. The paper aims at providing a comparative analysis of the effects imputable to the hipotetical application of several housing policies to the case study of Florence. Although many cities are experiencing the same dynamics (overtourism, gentrification, commercial use of private apartments), there is not a regulation fitting all of them. While the goal of regulation could be quite similar (reducing the overtourism and limiting commercial style STRs), the underlying processes and consequences differ per city. In this paper we argue that an adequate and data-driven policy can be implemented to ensure that the positive effects of new companies like Airbnb stay within the community and that the majority of hosts using the platform are representative of the community, not multinational commercial operations. The analysis of the Florence case study are based on spatial GIS techniques fuelled by Airbnb scaped data and other data base. Results shows that shifting from a laissez faire approach (which is the status quo) to even the weakest of such policies can have a large impact on dynamics of supply within short term and long term rental housing.

Suggested Citation

  • Taylor Higgins & Federico Martellozzo & Filippo Randelli, 2023. "Airbnb and the City: Comparative Analysis of Short-Term Rentals policies in Florence (Italy)," Working Papers - Economics wp2023_10.rdf, Universita' degli Studi di Firenze, Dipartimento di Scienze per l'Economia e l'Impresa.
    • Handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2023_10.rdf
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.disei.unifi.it/upload/sub/pubblicazioni/repec/pdf/wp10_2023.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Gianluca Iannucci & Federico Martellozzo & Filippo Randelli, 2022. "Sustainable development of rural areas: a dynamic model in between tourism exploitation and landscape decline," Journal of Evolutionary Economics, Springer, vol. 32(3), pages 991-1016, July.
    2. Salvador Garcia-Ayllon, 2018. "Urban Transformations as an Indicator of Unsustainability in the P2P Mass Tourism Phenomenon: The Airbnb Case in Spain through Three Case Studies," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(8), pages 1-21, August.
    3. Junfeng Jiao & Shunhua Bai, 2020. "Cities reshaped by Airbnb: A case study in New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 52(1), pages 10-13, February.
    4. Benítez-Aurioles, Beatriz & Tussyadiah, Iis, 2021. "What Airbnb does to the housing market," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 90(C).
    5. Ismael Yrigoy, 2019. "Rent gap reloaded: Airbnb and the shift from residential to touristic rental housing in the Palma Old Quarter in Mallorca, Spain," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 56(13), pages 2709-2726, October.
    6. Daniel Guttentag, 2015. "Airbnb: disruptive innovation and the rise of an informal tourism accommodation sector," Current Issues in Tourism, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(12), pages 1192-1217, December.
    7. Grimmer, Louise & Vorobjovas-Pinta, Oskaras & Massey, Maria, 2019. "Regulating, then deregulating Airbnb: The unique case of Tasmania (Australia)," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 304-307.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Lutz, Christoph & Majetić, Filip & Miguel, Cristina & Perez-Vega, Rodrigo & Jones, Brian, 2024. "The perceived impacts of short-term rental platforms: Comparing the United States and United Kingdom," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 77(C).
    2. Francisco José Chamizo-Nieto & Nuria Nebot-Gómez de Salazar & Carlos Rosa-Jiménez & Sergio Reyes-Corredera, 2023. "Touristification and Conflicts of Interest in Cruise Destinations: The Case of Main Cultural Tourism Cities on the Spanish Mediterranean Coast," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(8), pages 1-26, April.
    3. Mikołajewska-Zając, Karolina, 2023. "Airbnb's humanitarian aid during the war in Ukraine: Indispensability, dependence, and platform politics," economic sociology. perspectives and conversations, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies, vol. 24(2), pages 13-19.
    4. Irene Rubino & Cristina Coscia & Rocco Curto, 2020. "Identifying Spatial Relationships between Built Heritage Resources and Short-Term Rentals before the Covid-19 Pandemic: Exploratory Perspectives on Sustainability Issues," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(11), pages 1-22, June.
    5. Moaaz Kabil & Mohamed Abouelseoud & Faisal Alsubaie & Heba Mostafa Hassan & Imre Varga & Katalin Csobán & Lóránt Dénes Dávid, 2022. "Evolutionary Relationship between Tourism and Real Estate: Evidence and Research Trends," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(16), pages 1-19, August.
    6. Zach, Florian J. & Nicolau, Juan L. & Sharma, Abhinav, 2020. "Disruptive innovation, innovation adoption and incumbent market value: The case of Airbnb," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 80(C).
    7. Tomaso Duso & Claus Michelsen & Maximilian Schäfer & Kevin Ducbao Tran, 2021. "Airbnb and Rental Markets: Evidence from Berlin," Bristol Economics Discussion Papers 21/746, School of Economics, University of Bristol, UK.
    8. Katsinas, Philipp, 2021. "Professionalisation of short-term rentals and emergent tourism gentrification in post-crisis Thessaloniki," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108590, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Marcus Hübscher & Till Kallert, 2023. "Taming Airbnb Locally: Analysing Regulations in Amsterdam, Berlin and London," Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, Royal Dutch Geographical Society KNAG, vol. 114(1), pages 6-27, February.
    10. Thomas Sigler & David Wachsmuth, 2020. "New directions in transnational gentrification: Tourism-led, state-led and lifestyle-led urban transformations," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(15), pages 3190-3201, November.
    11. Seungbee Choi & Jongho Won, 2023. "Exploring the Survival Mechanisms of Short-Term Rentals in Virginia: A Comparative Analysis of Rural versus Non-Rural Markets," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(16), pages 1-17, August.
    12. José Fernandes & Pedro Chamusca & Rubén Lois & Helena Madureira & Juliano Mattos & Jorge Pinto, 2024. "Tourism-Led Change of the City Centre," Land, MDPI, vol. 13(1), pages 1-15, January.
    13. Chaang-Iuan Ho & Tzong-Shyuan Chen & Chin-Pei Li, 2023. "Airbnb’s Negative Externalities from the Consumer’s Perspective: How the Effects Influence the Booking Intention of Potential Guests," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(11), pages 1-28, May.
    14. Donghwan Ki & Sugie Lee, 2019. "Spatial Distribution and Location Characteristics of Airbnb in Seoul, Korea," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(15), pages 1-16, July.
    15. Gössling, Stefan & Larson, Mia & Pumputis, Aurimas, 2021. "Mutual surveillance on Airbnb," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    16. Aurel Pera, 2020. "Assessing Sustainability Behavior and Environmental Performance of Urban Systems: A Systematic Review," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(17), pages 1-19, September.
    17. Emeka Ndaguba & Cina Van Zyl, 2023. "Professionalizing Sharing Platforms for Sustainable Growth in the Hospitality Sector: Insights Gained through Hierarchical Linear Modeling," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(10), pages 1-24, May.
    18. Serhii Bardash & Oleksandr Sherstiuk, 2023. "Audit of the Tourist Rent Existence," Oblik i finansi, Institute of Accounting and Finance, issue 1, pages 5-16, March.
    19. Lee, Carmen Kar Hang & Tse, Ying Kei & Leung, Eric Ka Ho & Wang, Yichuan, 2024. "Causal recipes of customer loyalty in a sharing economy: Integrating social media analytics and fsQCA," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 181(C).
    20. Bernardo Gala-Velásquez & Américo Hurtado-Palomino & Angela Y. Arredondo-Salas, 2023. "Organisational Flexibility and Innovation Performance: The Moderating Role of Management Support," Global Journal of Flexible Systems Management, Springer;Global Institute of Flexible Systems Management, vol. 24(2), pages 219-234, June.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    short term rentals; AIRbnb; spatial analysis; GIS; housing policies;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • Q18 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Agriculture - - - Agricultural Policy; Food Policy; Animal Welfare Policy
    • R11 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Regional Economic Activity: Growth, Development, Environmental Issues, and Changes
    • R12 - Urban, Rural, Regional, Real Estate, and Transportation Economics - - General Regional Economics - - - Size and Spatial Distributions of Regional Economic Activity; Interregional Trade (economic geography)

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:frz:wpaper:wp2023_10.rdf. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Giorgio Ricchiuti (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/defirit.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.