The short-term rental market in Greece is moving with the acquired speed of the summer, while in Europe the demand has hit a “pause” since September.
After the summer season’s record high, short-term rentals have entered into reverse, according to data from the airDNA, of the official observatory of Airbnb and Vrbo, key short-term rental players on the continent. September ended with 39.2 million overnight stays in European market accommodation, a figure that translates into 33.9% growth over “pandemic” 2021, but fell short of 2019’s pace as overnight stays are down by 1 .7%. Bookings for future nights also fell in September by 4.3% compared to 2019, although they are running +25.8% compared to last year.
In contrast, Greece is said to be still resisting the downward trend experienced by short-term rentals, which confirms the extension of the tourist season. In particular, our country takes a place in the – short – list of countries that exceeded the performance of “gold” for the sector 2019. in September. Among them Greece, in fourth place, where demand moved up by 13.5% in the first month of autumn. The domestic market was surpassed in terms of demand by France (+19.2%), Germany (+15.7%) and Austria (+15.1%).
Demand surge for the three-day period
The data confirm the dynamics of short-term leases reservations for the three days of October 28 in the winter destinations, as collected by the Hellenic E-Real Estates Network. Already in mid-September, pre-bookings for apartments and houses registered on short-term rental platforms were recorded high, at rates of 51%-85%, now, pre-bookings are fluctuating. from 85% to 100%, while most of the popular winter destinations are already above 90%. Indicatively, pre-booking rates start at 85% in Vytina and Stemnitsa and reach up to 100% in Kastoria and Metsovo.
Coming back to Europe, available rental listings also fell by 9.4% compared to September 2019, but listings this year are 16.1% more than last year. Occupancy levels remained high, despite the slowdown in demand. In September, short-term rental accommodation occupancy reached 61.4% in Europe, up 2.7% from 2019.
The listings picture is mixed among Europe’s top 20 markets. And in this case, Greece belongs to the countries with the positive sign, since the supply of accommodation increased, but marginally, by 0.8%. It should be noted that the the largest increase in available properties was seen in Norway (11.2%) and France (8.5%).
Greece, however, already has a place in the countries with the greatest increase in demand for short-term rentals the summeras the rentals of this type of accommodation were 24% more than in 2019 between June and August, reaching pre-pandemic levels.
Energy and inflation bring recession in winter
Looking ahead to the next four months (December – March), demand lags behind 2019 (by 15.7%), but shows a notable increase of 11.6% compared to last year. His analysts AirDNA attribute the decline to uncertainty already affecting bookings for this winter, the war in Ukraine, energy and inflation causing headaches for travelers and property owners.
Limit on activity by model
We must not, however, forget that its explosion Airbnb has been red cloth for the Greek hoteliers. On the occasion of the presentation of the strategy for Greek tourism, the president of SETE, Yiannis Retsos, referred to the issue recently, acknowledging that short-term leases are part of the tourism product. He of course emphasized that “beyond the individual activity there is also a gray institutional framework that must be changed as it allows business groups under the guise of short-term rental to carry out activity that is completely competitive with hotels or rooms for rent with what this entails in terms of tax evasion.
In fact, among the proposals that have been submitted is, according to the model of other European cities, to give the possibility for municipalities to set limits on the exercise of the activity”. Already at the beginning of this season, SETE had requested through a letter to six ministers to put a brake on the days of residence and also on the number of properties available from each individual for short-term rental.with the issuance of a Joint Ministerial Decision of the Ministers of Economy and Development, Finance and Tourism.