5 March 2020 saw the European Commission (EC) announce an
unprecedented agreement with short-stay accommodation titans
Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia and TripAdvisor to share and publish
data (on the number of nights booked and the number of guests
staying) with the EC via Eurostat (the EU's statistical office)
(press release here). Eurostat will then aggregate the data
by municipality and publish that data on a Member State and
individual region level.
This collaborative venture represents an initial step by the EC
in tackling the absence of regular and reliable data in this area,
and recognises the need to balance: (a) the opportunities for
micro-entrepreneurs using these growing platforms; and (b) adverse
societal effect on local communities of landlords using their
properties for short term lets, e.g. increasing property
prices.
