“User experience.” These two words are all you need to explain the inexorable rise of overnight reservations via booking platforms such as Airbnb and Booking.com. It’s so easy! Not cheaper, mind you.
Such platforms are used more and more: in a new record set in 2024 for short overnight stays in Europe--almost 3bn--some 28% or 854m nights were booked online. The trend is observable in Luxembourg too. Even though short overnight stays in the grand duchy bucked the European trend by falling 2.7%, the number of online bookings nevertheless hit 495,891, an increase of 16% over one year (versus +18.8% in Europe). This number of online bookings has more than doubled since 2021 and the end of the covid-19 health crisis.
The numbers aren’t yet perfect, however. The Housing Observatory points out at the they are distorted because promoters are using these platforms to find tenants.
Still, they do mean something. And we can learn some things about holidaymakers from the statistics: six of the top 20 destinations are in France; five are in Spain; five in Italy; two in Greece; one in Portugal; and one in Croatia. For a start, then, people like sunshine. Notably, there was an uptick in short trips in March (+48%), May (+32%) and November (21.5%), in what looks like an urgent need to make summer happen right this instant.
Housing suffocated in city centres
Of course, holidaymakers aren’t invisible. And local residents are getting annoyed: their neighbourhoods turn into tourist zones, their rents go up, nights are polluted with noise pollution. In popular destinations such as Barcelona, rents have risen by 70% in ten years, which makes life expensive for locals. In Lisbon, Amsterdam and Paris, many residents accuse the platforms of accentuating the gentrification of their cities--historic centres are filled with passing travellers and investors, while families and the middle classes struggle to find year-round accommodation. “There are too many Airbnbs,” said Spanish prime minister Pedro Sánchez in early 2025, justifying new measures to protect residents.
In addition to the housing issue, the overtourism generated by these rentals is fuelling tensions. In Spain, anti-tourist demonstrations broke out in 2024 in certain regions fed up with the massive influx of visitors. In Croatia and Italy, campaigns denouncing the impact of holiday rentals on local life have flourished on social networks. Everywhere, the diagnosis is similar: short-term rentals bring in income for owners and shopkeepers, but they can turn neighbourhoods into theme parks and degrade the quality of life of permanent residents. This finding has prompted many local and national authorities to face up to Airbnb and its competitors.
Record fines and restrictive laws
The political response is now being organised across Europe. In France, the courts and elected representatives are taking an increasingly firm stance. A striking example: on 8 April 2025, the Airbnb platform was ordered on appeal to pay €8.65m to the Ile d’Oléron community of municipalities, a record-high fine imposed for failing to collect the tourist tax by 2021-2022. “History will record that a small island in the Atlantic made the American digital tourism giant bend over backwards,” said Michel Parent, president of the Oléron community, after this legal victory. Airbnb, which considers the sanctions to be “disproportionate,” has announced that it will appeal the decision. France is not alone in cracking down. In Italy, the tax authorities have seized €779m from Airbnb, accusing it of failing to declare its users’ rental income between 2017 and 2021.
Governments are also taking the problem in their stride. At the end of 2024, the French Parliament adopted an “anti-Airbnb law” supported by all parties. The law, which came into force in the autumn, aims to curb the tax appeal of tourist lettings and provide mayors with the tools they need to tackle the housing crisis. In concrete terms, the tax allowance for Airbnb income has been drastically reduced (from 71% to just 30%). In addition, a registration number will be required for all furnished tourist accommodation rented out, in response to a recurring request from mayors for better control of the supply. The law also strengthens the means of limiting the proliferation of second homes in areas under pressure. “Overall, it’s a good thing,” reacted Clément Eulry, director of Airbnb France, saying he was in favour of clearer rules.
On the other side of the Pyrenees, Spain has also tightened the screw. Since 2 January 2025, new national regulations have required all owners wishing to rent out tourist accommodation to register and obtain an official permit before publishing their advert. The platforms will have to collect more data on tenants (bank details, identifiers) and the state is planning to bring VAT on these rentals into line with that on hotels (10%). A transitional period runs until 1 July 2025, after which offenders will face fines of up to €600,000. “Our obligation is to prioritise housing use over tourist use,” Sánchez hammered home. The Spanish government is going even further, considering taxing property purchases by non-EU residents up to 100%, in order to discourage purely lucrative investments in tourist accommodation.
Luxembourg gets ahead of regulations
At a local level, many European metropolises have not waited to act. Amsterdam limits tourist rentals to 60 nights a year and charges tourist tax directly to the platforms. Berlin prohibits the rental of an entire property without a permit (only rooms in a private home are permitted), on pain of a hefty fine (€100,000 maximum). Barcelona has long required landlords to have a tourist rental permit, while at the same time taxing stays and limiting rentals to a maximum of two rooms when the owner stays on site. Dublin has restricted short-term rentals in its city centre (Temple Bar), requiring prior authorisation. Lisbon, meanwhile, has reached an agreement with Airbnb to better regulate the market, including data sharing and automatic payment of tourist tax by the platform.
Luxembourg also introduced a reform at the end of 2023. According to a parliamentary response at the end of last year, 137 authorisations were issued between September 2023 and August 2024, compared with 99 authorisations issued between September 2022 and August 2023. Beyond three months (that can float over a year), those who want to rent out a room or flat must have an establishment permit, with all that this entails in terms of administrative and tax formalities.
Even Brussels is getting to grips with the subject. The European Union is working on a minimum harmonisation of rules to help member states and cities better regulate holiday rentals. At the end of 2023, the European Parliament and the 27 member states agreed on a future regulation aimed at increasing the transparency of short-term rentals and promoting sustainable tourism. This European framework should oblige platforms to regularly share their data with national authorities, in order to facilitate the monitoring of local obligations (overnight stay limits, payment of taxes, compliance with licences, etc.) The stated aim is to provide cities with the means to act, while avoiding excessive fragmentation of the single tourism market. The fight against Airbnb’s excesses has only just begun, and it will have to be waged at all levels--local, national and European--to strike a balance between tourist appeal and the right to accommodation.
Platforms on the offensive
Faced with this wave of regulations, Airbnb and co. are not standing still. The Californian unicorn is doing its utmost to defend its business model, multiplying impact studies and public statements. Airbnb reports, citing a commissioned study from Oxford Economics, that the new Spanish rules could threaten 400,000 jobs and nearly €30bn in economic spin-offs in the country. The platform claims to provide a vital supplement to the income of thousands of families, particularly in rural areas, and to stimulate local trade thanks to visitors. In France, Airbnb has been conducting an operation in recent months to dispel misunderstandings, assuring elected representatives, for example, that the accommodation rented via its site represents only a tiny proportion of the total stock--around 1% of homes in Spain, according to official data quoted by the company. Its directors insist that the housing crisis is primarily due to a lack of construction and vacant homes (more than 4.7m empty homes in Spain, i.e. 14% of the total, according to Airbnb).
At the same time, and in a position that has remained stable for years, Airbnb says it is ready to work with the authorities to achieve “balanced and proportionate” regulation. It has welcomed the European initiative to create a common register of tourist rentals and a standardised exchange of data. Aware of the unpopularity it is facing in certain urban centres, the company has also tightened its own rules to limit abuse (ban on parties, checking the identity of tenants, etc.) Its competitors, such as Booking.com and Expedia, are following the same line of communication, emphasising their contribution to the dynamism of tourism while promising to be responsible players. However, despite this conciliatory approach, the platforms have not hesitated to defend their interests in court when they consider the measures to be illegal or excessive. Airbnb has already taken legal action against several cities to challenge restrictions deemed too harsh, and the outcome of these legal battles could set the limits of public action in the face of the digital economy.
This article in French.