COVID-resistant domestic short-term rentals in Europe

Abstract

During the COVID-19 pandemic, platform-mediated short-term rentals are believed to have performed better than traditional tourism accommodation due to tourist preferences and the possibility of evading some sanitary regulations. The paper investigates this difference in 31 European countries by combining conventional hotel statistics with novel data on short-stay accommodation (SSA) gathered by Eurostat from four major platforms mediating in home rentals. The first hypothesis that short-term rental accommodation lost fewer tourists during the pandemic than hotels is supported if domestic tourism is concerned. The second hypothesis that the loss of tourists in short-term rental accommodation was less dependent on the stringency of restrictions than in hotels is only confirmed for domestic tourism in small, primarily outbound tourism-generating countries. The study results shed light on the pandemic-induced travel substitution, discussion on the regulation of short-term rentals, and the utility of Eurostat SSA statistics as a new research data source.