Every day of the summer, franceinfo presents an application that has changed your lives or your habits. The turn of Airbnb, the global giant of seasonal rentals.
Thanks to Airbnb, it is possible to sleep in a small room in SToo Paulo, in a caravan in the south of England, or in a loft in New York. The application is the number 1 for seasonal rentals.
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The story begins in San Francisco in 2007, in a roommate of friends. Two of the three co-founders, then students, struggle to make ends meet. They take advantage of an important conference organized in the city and a shortage of hotel rooms, to rent inflatable mattresses in their living room. From there comes the original name: “Airbed and breakfast”, or, in French, “inflatable mattress and breakfast”, then shortened to “Airbnb”.
The platform was created in the wake of 2008 and its initial motto is: “Share accommodation, save money, and meet nice people“. The operation of the platform is simple, putting an ad online is free. Airbnb then takes a commission from the host and the traveler. By allowing owners of their accommodation to round off their months and by creating a community of hosts, Airbnb becomes a symbol of the “sharing economy”.
Exponential growth
In 2016, the platform’s offer is expanding with “experiences“. In the same year, Airbnb builds its own building. A year later, in 2017, is launched “Open homes“, a platform to welcome climate and political refugees.
In 2020, Airbnb unsurprisingly suffered the full brunt of the Covid-19 pandemic, due to the total shutdown of global tourism. A quarter of the 7,500 employees worldwide must be made redundant. But this setback does not prevent the app from going public at the end of 2020.
Today, the figures are dizzying: more than 6 million ads are online, in more than 190 countries and tens of thousands of cities, islands or “unusual” places. In 2021, 300 million nights were booked worldwide. Airbnb has a dozen offices spread across all continents. Its European headquarters are in Dublin, which allows it to take advantage of Irish tax advantages.
Airbnb and the housing crisis, especially in France
In France, the second destination after the United States, 500,000 accommodations are rented and 86 million nights were booked via Airbnb last year. But with this success, tourist rentals are exploding, especially after the Covid-19 crisis, rents are rising and city centers are emptying of their inhabitants.
Much to the chagrin of early Airbnb user Iswann: “Unfortunately this application is misguided today, by operators who see it as a way to make juicy investments, optimized by mass tourism, disembodied, which completely diverts the primary vocation and the promise of the application.”
“Airbnb’s promise was above all to create an experience between individuals and to generate encounters, through travel.”
Iswannapp user
Countries and cities are trying to resist, especially in Europe. In Italy, Florence tries to say “ciao” to Airbnb. France could take inspiration from it. According to the government, banning Airbnbs in certain historic centers is not a “taboo” and it says it is “favorable” to a tax reform, which is very advantageous for furnished tourist accommodation.
At the same time, the PS deputy for Pyrénées-Atlantiques Inaki Echaniz, with his colleague from Finistère, the Renaissance deputy Annaïg Le Meur, tabled a bill last February to better regulate furnished tourist accommodation. His examination, initially scheduled for last spring, has been postponed indefinitely. And with the Paris Olympics approaching next year, renting your apartment on Airbnb already appears to be a significant bargain.