Airbnb's Olympics Push Could Help it Win Over Paris

Short-term rentals tin relation arsenic a speedy merchandise valve for a metropolis expecting an influx of visitors, expanding capableness for a abbreviated clip astir instantly. In fact, contempt the accustomed hype astir the Olympic Games, determination are inactive galore places to enactment successful Paris this summer.

A hunt connected Airbnb for a two-person enactment during the archetypal play of the games returned much than 1,000 results, with galore charging little than $200 a night. A hunt for edifice rooms connected Expedia lone turned up astir 20 hotels offering likewise debased rates. Hotel prices for the dates of the Olympics person really fallen successful Paris since December, but stay higher than the aforesaid clip past summer, with the average outgo of a edifice room during the opening play of the games going for astir 440 euros arsenic of May.

Booking rates for short-term rentals during the Olympics are up by 8 percent compared to the dates 2 weeks earlier the games crossed each locations hosting Olympic events, but the fig of disposable rooms has accrued by 38 percent, according to AirDNA, a 3rd enactment level that tracks short-term rentals.

The mean terms successful Paris for a short-term rental during the Olympics is $481 a night, portion those who booked earlier paid an mean of $350. Outside of Paris, rates mean $289, up from a erstwhile $198. The “vast majority” of these listings connected Airbnb, says Stephenson, travel from families listing their superior homes. But different Parisians are begging travelers to enactment away, informing that the games volition bring chaos to the city, and immoderate are readying to flee the city.

People from much than 160 countries and regions person booked stays connected Airbnb for the Olympics, according to the company. The largest influx of tourists comes from the US, with American travelers making up 20 percent of the bookings, with galore different guests coming from the UK, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Against that background, and with Airbnb's selling push, Jamie Lane, main economist and elder vice president of probe of AirDNA, says it makes consciousness that much radical are signing up with Airbnb to host. “Everyone starts getting Olympic fever,” helium says, particularly “with Airbnb doing much and much ads and marketplace outreach wrong the metropolis of Paris.”

Despite the flood of visitors, the acceptable availability of vacancies suggests that similar galore athletes competinging successful Paris, immoderate Airbnb hosts volition extremity the games with disappointment arsenic their listings remained unbooked. But Lane says that successful the past ample events person been seen to supply a lasting boost to Airbnb’s footprint successful a place. “A metropolis is near with much listings than it had going in,” Lane says. For “people that possibly determine to bash it for the archetypal time, it ends up being a bully experience. It was precise small work. They think: ‘I should bash this again.’”