The Impact of Short-Time Rentals in the Demography of Touristic - PDF document

The Impact of Short-Time Rentals in the Demography of Touristic Neighborhoods: the case of Barcelona Joan SALES-FAVÀ (jsales@ced.uab.es) Antonio LÓPEZ-GAY (tlopez@ced.uab.es) Juan Antonio MÓDENES (juanantonio.modenes@uab.cat) Centre d’Estudis Demogràfics and Department of Geography (Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). THIS IS A PRELIMINAR VERSION PREPARED FOR THE INTERNATIONAL POPULATION CONGRESS 2017.WORK-IN-PROGRESS PAPER. Abstract: Cities are becoming a preferred tourist destination and have recently experienced the emergence of new sources of accommodation. Besides the general increase in the number of urban hotel rooms, the change in the uses of dwellings (from residential to tourist) is generating a significant impact on the housing system of the neighborhoods under high touristic pressure. These shifts could be strengthening new sociodemographic processes in the most touristic areas. Up to now this field is driving the attention of different social sciences that commonly put population displacement in the spotlight. In this paper we aim to explore the impact of short-term rentals, and the emergence of Airbnb, in Barcelona and its neighborhoods. Our main goal is to measure the direct displacement of households. This article analyses the relationship between households ’ dynamics and their determinants, taking account space. For this reason, a Geographically Weighted Regression technique is employed to explore this relationship. The outcome of the paper provides evidence that the Short Term Rentals are significantly and negatively related to the evolution of the number of households. Other structural variables are introduced in the model in order to control this parameter. Key Words: Tourism, Population, Households, Geographically Weighted Regression, Barcelona. 1. Introduction In the last years, tourism has become an important economic sector. The consumption of services that provide leisure have become an increasingly important part of mass consumption (Bauman, 1988). As a result of this rapid growth we could find some evidence of the first externalities in some crowded touristy places. The literature about the development of tourism and population dynamics have been focusing about the repercussions of this economic activity in rural areas and in low-density population areas. In these contexts authors usually associated the tourism expansion with population growth, demographic changes and relapse in ageing (Greenwood, 1972; Loukissas, 1982; Getz, 1986; Gill and Williams, 1994). Nevertheless, more recent studies have found some 1

negatives externalities of tourism activity on rural population (Smith and Krannich, 1998; Heberlein et al. 2002; Hines, 2010). Although the contemporary development of cities, at urbanistic and population levels, has been shaped by the rise of tourism there are only a few articles about the repercussions on population dynamics (Bock, 2015). Olds (1989) explained how hotel owners during the 1980's in Vancouver removed 2.000 housing in the process of converting them from residential to tourist use. This implied that hundreds of long-term resident were evicted. Additionally, we shall raise here the contribution of Gotham (2005) and Garcia Herrera et al. (2007) that explained the population changes of a city under high tourist pressure. 2. Short-Term rentals externalities From an economic point of view, there are some relevant findings on the effect of Short- Term rentals in the hotel sector and in the housing market (Zervas et al. 2013; Sheppard and Udell, 2016). The expansion of new online platforms, such as Airbnb or HomeAway - which are pooling in apartments, or parts of these, to the tourist accommodation supply- is generating new dynamics in the housing market of the most touristic areas. The profitability of holiday accommodations leads to a shortage of housing supply for residential uses and may be causing an increase in housing prices (Lee 2016; Schafer and Braun, 2016). These transformations could be strengthening new sociodemographic processes in the neighborhoods under high tourist pressure. Such areas are often experiencing ongoing gentrification processes (Gotham, 2005; García-Herrera et al., 2007; Quattrone et al., 2016). Gotham’s contribution on thi s issue appears to be specially relevant: “ I develop and apply the concept of tourism gentrification as a heuristic device to explain the transformation of a middle-class neighbourhood into a relatively affluent and exclusive enclave marked by a proliferation of corporate entertainment and tourism venues ” (Gotham, 2005; page 1102). In fact, the Short-Term rentals (STRs) appears to be already an old activity in some Spanish beach holidays resorts. But it is a recent phenomenon in cities like Barcelona, Madrid or Bilbao (linked with Airbnb emergence). The expansion of this kind of establishment has given rise to competition in the tourist market (Zervas et al. 2016). In addition, the STR's have affected the housing market and especially the rental market (Duatis et al., 2016; Consultora EY, 2016; Lee, 2016; Llop, 2016). From a theoretical point of view, STRs inside in to different ways into demographic reduction (from a household or individual level). From a household perspective: any given dwelling that was previously the residence of a family could now end up being a tourist flat offered at Airbnb. Thus, the home would be been eliminated from the conventional residence stock. On the other hand, from an individual scope: the owner or the tenant of a dwelling that is seeking a flat mate has an economic stimulus when he or she rents a room at Airbnb, which is greater than doing so with a neighbor from town (Lee, 2016). The main goal of this article is to measure the first case, the reduction of the number of households induced by the Airbnb expansion. 2

3. Tourism, housing and households: recent trends in Barcelona. This paper focuses on the case of Barcelona, the third city in Europe by number of listings in Airbnb, and one of the most visited 1 , with almost 32 million tourist overnight stays in 2016 2 (20 times their population). In ten years, the number of overnight stays have tripled. The dramatic increase of tourism has raised complaints and even adverse reactions. In 2016, according to a local council survey on the resident’s evaluation of public services in Barcelona (Ajuntament de Barcelona, 2016), tourism was said to be the second main problem of the city (following unemployment). Moreover, in 16 of the 73 neighborhoods of the city, tourism ranks #1 as the biggest concern for the residents (especially in central areas). Figure 1 shows the number of tourists that have visited Barcelona since 2001 (by the number of visitors and number of overnights) and the evolution of the tourist accommodations. Since 2001 and until 2007 the number of hosting beds in Barcelona has increased by 48%. Barcelona saw a significant increase in visitors and tourist supply after the entrance of low cost carriers (Jones Lang Lasalle, 2006). However, it has been between 2009 and 2016, and particularly in 2012, 2013 and 2014 when the number of accommodations had increased swifter. In this last period, the supply has grown by 74,521 places. This growth was stimulated by an increase in the number of tourists. Barcelona received 6,480,051 tourists in 2009, seven years later the number increased up to 12,715,000 (2016). 32,000,000 144,000 Travellers Travellers and overnights stays 24,000,000 108,000 Overnights stays Places Beds 16,000,000 72,000 8,000,000 36,000 0 0 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 Year Figure 1: Tourist activity in Barcelona since 2001. Beds Source: Inside Airbnb, Tourism register of Catalonia and Xarxa Catalana d'Instal·lacions Juvenils. Travellers and overnight stays Source: Hotel Occupancy Survey and Business Survey of the Hotel Sector. Since 2001, Barcelona have experienced high increase of the housing stock. 67,293 dwellings have built until 2016 (Figure 2). The dwelling stock has grown progressively during the period 2001-2016. Additionally, the number of households had risen rapidly until 2010, at the same time as the international arrivals wave (Bayona i Carrasco, 2007). In 1 According to the MasterCard Global Destinations Cities Index (2016), Barcelona ranks 12th in the World and 5th in Europe (following London, Paris, Berlin and Rome) on international overnight visitors. 2 According to the official Tourism Barcelona Agency (www.barcelonaturisme.com) and Hotel Occupancy Survey from INE (National Institute of Statistics). 3