Transcript

Still Booking · STR Unpacked

Ben: Good morning and welcome to your short-term rental bulletin on the 11th of June. So you'd be forgiven for thinking that every headline this year says the same thing to do with short-term rentals. Cities are cracking down on short-term rentals, cap spans, fines, mass do listings, a whole lot, right? So I think with that you would assume that the sector is shrinking. But it isn't. Eurostat has just pulled the hard numbers on it, and short stay nights booked through Airbnb, Booking.com and Expedia. Hit nearly 92 million across the EU last year. That's up 11.4%. Now compare that to the whole accommodation market. Hotels, holiday lets, campsites, everything. That grew 2.2%. Hotels, the biggest slice by far, barely moved. So the part of tourism that politicians keep framing as the problem is the part that's actually pulling the numbers up. Demand isn't following the regulation, it's outrunning it. And for operators that's a real signal. The guests are still there. They're still booking and in record volume. The fight was never about whether people want this. It's about who gets to supply it. So plan accordingly. And thank you for watching, and I'll see you tomorrow.