Airbnb has blamed the hotel industry for overtourism in Europe following criticism that its services are pricing out local residents in popular holiday destinations and contributing to overcrowding.
Theo Yedinsky, vice-president for public policy at the home rentals company, said that his company was the victim of “scapegoating” by local authorities in cities such as Barcelona, following a spike in anti-tourism protests across the continent.
Rather than short-term rentals, Mr Yedinsky said it was, in fact, the hotel industry that was contributing to overtourism, not Airbnb properties.
“We end up getting a lot of the blame, especially in city centres [but] the reality is overtourism is really driven by the hotels,” he told the Financial Times.
“It is totally unfair.”
His comments come after a weekend which saw thousands of protestors gather in major cities across southern Europe to demonstrate against overtourism.
In Barcelona, protesters carried banners with slogans reading “your holiday, my misery” and “mass tourism kills the city”, while similar demonstrations occurred in Malaga, Palma de Mallorca, San Sebastian, Ibiza and Granada.
Protests also took place in Italy, including in Milan, Venice, Naples, Palermo and Genoa.
Critics argue that overtourism results in adverse economic, environmental, social and cultural consequences, including increased pollution, limited resources (such as water), inflated prices for local people and overcrowding.
Local people argue they are being priced out of their own cities due to rising rents and the conversion of homes to short-term rentals.
In May, Spanish officials ordered Airbnb to remove over 65,000 holiday rental listings in the country for breaching regulations.
And in January, Greece announced a one-year ban on new short-term rental registrations in Athens following a dip in affordable housing for local residents.
In response, Mr Yedinsky said: “I think the Mayor of Barcelona needs to look at the construction of hotels, he needs to look at hotels in general … and they need to build more housing.
“They are scapegoating Airbnb. They are attacking a fraction of the problem and then wondering why it’s not getting better.”
Spain’s consumer rights minister, Pablo Bustinduy, said the tourism sector “cannot jeopardize the constitutional rights of the Spanish people”, which enshrines their right to housing and well-being.
