EDITOR'S COMMENT
• A lot has been made about the short-term rental sector's recovery from the pandemic but the latest data released by Eurostat, the statistical agency of the European Union [EU], will be hugely encouraging for the major booking platforms in Europe. Following a gradual recovery of booking numbers during the second half of 2021, reservations reached and exceeded pre-pandemic levels for the first time in the first half of 2022.
According to Eurostat, guests spent around 199 million nights in short-term rental accommodation booked via Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia or TripAdvisor in the EU in the first half of 2022, representing an increase of around 138 per cent compared with the same period a year ago. That figure is also around six million nights higher than the same period in 2019.
It marks the first time Eurostat has published monthly data on short-stay accommodation offered via private collaborative economy platforms referring to the current year, since the European Commission and the platforms agreed a data-sharing partnership in March 2020.
The data will provide optimism around Europe, especially as 15 regions recorded more than one million guest nights booked in the first quarter of this year. However, as the European Commission prepares to issue a major update on its short-term rental initiative in November, that recovery may be more stunted in the coming months than expected if plans go ahead for standardised regulation of short-term rentals across the EU.
• We're back for our next RockSTRz webinar tomorrow [18 October] at 4pm BST as we explore "The price is REIT: Investment trends in the STR sector". I'll be joined by an expert panel, including Jorge Aldecoa [reAlpha], Anders Boelskifte Mogensen [Founderment] and Bryan Auchterlonie [Destination Capital], to discuss the different types of financing available, the acceleration of private equity and institutional investment entering the sector, and more.
Sign up for the no-cost session at this link.
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