Across Europe, the original disrupter is being disrupted.
As the number of Airbnb properties in Venice quadrupled between 2015 and 2019, local entrepreneur and activist Emanuele Dal Carlo decided it was time to take action. "Twelve thousand Airbnbs might not sound a lot compared to other cities, like New York," says Dal Carlo, co-founder and president of community-based booking platform Fairbnb Coop, "but Venice is only three kilometres by three kilometres and there are only 38,000 houses. When a quarter of those are rented only to tourists, that is a problem."
Short-term booking platforms like Airbnb have come under scrutiny in recent years, including in many regional areas of Australia, where there is a significant lack of housing for local residents. In Barcelona and Amsterdam, officials have legislated to control the knock-on effects that have seen locals priced out of markets or having to leave neighbourhoods as they gradually morph into tourist service hubs.
Dal Carlo says a "counter-narrative" from platforms like Airbnb is that they bring in money and job opportunities, but he claims "the people they work with, the property managers, cleaners and whatever don't generally live in the city centre. They are mostly people that live outside and they use the city as a commodity."
The services that tourists need are different to locals, Dal Carlo, who grew up in the Santa Croce area of Venice, points out. "They need food and transport, but they don't need to buy shoes. They don't need to go to the tailor or buy whitegoods. And so those kind of things disappear from the city centre and the people move away."
Regular short-term accommodation guests may have noticed an increase in cookie-cutter catalogue furnishings and key safes replacing cosy homes and host meet and greets. "It was a cool operation, a profitable version of couch-surfing that worked well until about 2012 or 2013, when agencies began to understand that it was a good business opportunity," says Dal Carlo. "And these companies may have 100, 500 properties. I know one company that has 7000 all over Europe ... this is not a side-hustle."
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In response to what he calls "the dark side" of short-term rental platforms, Dal Carlo launched Fairbnb Coop in 2020, disrupting the original disruptor and taking it through Europe and beyond. "We thought, let's lead by example and create the best possible platform, a cooperative, that takes a multi-stakeholder approach, financed by the members and impact investors only. So, people who are not interested in making a huge profit off it. And then we applied some socially responsible rules."
Those rules include all hosts being checked to make sure they are registered and paying tax and a "one host, one house" rule in places suffering what Dal Carlo calls "touristification". Like Airbnb, Fairbnb charges a commission to hosts (15 per cent of the rental) but half of that is given back to support social enterprises; a prompt on booking gives guests the choice of the project they want to support.
"In this way, we think we are able to close the circle between locals, platform and residents, and for hosts, there is a moment of connection - you are not only renting your house, but putting a bit of money towards something that you care about in your city."
Fairbnb operates in Italy, France, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Croatia, Portugal, Germany, Switzerland and the UK, with expansion set to happen into Slovenia, Canada, Poland and Turkey. Australian partners are also being sought.
As for Dal Carlo, he no longer lives in Venice's city centre. Like many of his friends and former neighbours, he's moved to the "mestre" - the mainland. The house he used to rent is now an Airbnb. fairbnb.coop
