Airbnb monitor Utrecht
During the last years, the sharing economy disrupted (urban) tourism. The exponentially growing popularity of platforms such as Airbnb caused the emerging of a new type of tourism. Any home owner could share their spare room or entire house and reach a massive audience using online platforms. Rooms and houses started being shared all over the city which brought tourism, sometimes literally, into the backyards of city dwellers. In some places, this lead to conflict between residents and tourists fueled by the believe that residential neighbourhoods were being 'touristified', rents would be increasing and social cohesion would disappear. Since the debate on this topic was mainly led by sentiments, we teamed up with the municipality to deliver a 6-monthly monitor which keeps track of the development of Airbnb in the municipality of Utrecht, compares it to trends and reflects on its impact on the city. The results are shared through a publicly available report, but also through workshops with policymakers and presentations for the general public.