accommodation as opposed to short-term rental accommodation such as Airbnb . 11 As one local government interview participant noted reluctantly :
‘ I sound like I ’ m spouting the Airbnb line , but it ’ s basically filling gaps where there isn ’ t hotel and motel accommodation in places so it means that tourism can , that more people can come and stay in those places which is a great ’. This was particularly the case ‘… in terms of providing accommodation for the hospital and university , I think that [ Airbnb ] has been the big rise [ sic ] in meeting that need .’
Another interview participant explained how , ‘ the value of residential development is far greater than the provision that hotels and that clear economics has been in place for quite a long time .’ Which is consistent with the lack of conventional tourist accommodation leading to the arrival of Airbnb in Australia . The City of Sydney experienced a boom of tourist accommodation ahead of the 2000 Olympics which was later converted to other uses as demand declined . Excluding experiences since the onset of the Covid pandemic , Sydney has experienced high occupancy levels , but hotels have seen little growth in room rates ( 0.4 % real growth per annum ) . 12
Increased accessibility to the Northern Rivers region in in the 2000s through upgrades to the highway and more affordable flights , has resulted in a high influx of tourists , raising demand for accommodation generally , which the region was unprepared for . A demand that Airbnb has helped meet . One participant argued that the , ‘ 70s idea of you know low rise , low impact accommodation has now created massive problems because Airbnb has grown massively ’. This was explained further by another participant , who agreed that their LGA had not ‘ opened the doors up to developers to build lots of tourist resorts down the coastline . And due to those restrictions if there ’ s a demand for something the market will find another way to provide it ’’.
For one LGA , Airbnb was thought to be a low impact form of economic development and possibly beneficial in supporting its dominant tourism markets of families and sporting events . Largely operating parttime , Airbnb was found ‘ to pop up on major weekends and major sporting events ’.
Airbnb and Housing We know secure , affordable and appropriate housing can be an important driver of , or a lack of , an impediment to , the development of economies on a local scale . 13 , 14 One interview participant reported , ‘ literally like you cannot find a place … pushing people out into these satellite areas , [ who are ] still driving to work , just to add to costs ’.
High housing costs and extremely low vacancy rates restrict mobility of the workforce , preventing people from considering career changes or study to upskill , instead they may remain in employment inhibiting potential productivity .
There is also a tension between what feels like a very personal decision to invest in real estate to get ahead and the Australian political culture which has created a self-help and financialised approach to housing and household finances . 15 , 16 , 17 One interview participant reported :
‘ if you can rent out a spare room on Airbnb and that can help cover the cost of your rent , and I know that ’ s quite a prevalent thing to do [ in Waverley and Randwick LGAs ]… if you can afford to do that and cover some of the price of your rent from Airbnbing something then the theory would also suggest that you can afford to bid up the price of rent more than you otherwise could have ’.
Airbnb has encouraged individual and local entrepreneurialism by encouraging property owners to commodify their housing and generate income from their under-utilised spaces . The use of Airbnb however , to help people afford to live in their home , or keep up with the increasing cost of living is a clear and concerning form of commodification of housing . In 2021 , almost 30 % of NSW households were experiencing rental stress and 8.4 % of NSW regional households 18 and 14.5 % of metropolitan NSW households were experiencing mortgage stress , 19 Statistics demonstrating that families deserve more than a bandaid of visitors to help them pay for the roof over their head .
Additionally , interview participants reported that measures previously implemented to create more affordable housing have been co-opted by Airbnb . For example , previously waived development application fees for specified secondary dwellings
(‘ granny flats ’) on properties to increase affordable housing supply were being used for Airbnb instead and the waived fees were now in the process of being recovered :
‘ we already did incentives where we waived development application fees which are about $ 25,000 for a granny flat to increase granny flats . Now , it worked . Hundreds got built that weren ’ t being built . Of them now , increasingly over half have been Airbnb ’ d . Now for me that ’ s not a disaster because you ’ ve still got a couple of hundred which exist that didn ’ t exist and wouldn ’ t have existed for long-term let because of it . But it was still an incentive which didn ’ t quite hit the mark ’.
High housing costs and extremely low vacancy rates restrict mobility of the workforce , preventing people from considering career changes or study to upskill , instead they may remain in employment inhibiting potential productivity .
AUSTRALIAN REGULATORY RESPONSES TO AIRBNB Compared to international responses to Airbnb and STRA generally , Australia has been slow and light in their response . In Australia , each level of government has a different legislation related to STRA .
Most Australian states and territories have considered the regulatory frameworks and impacts of STRA through parliamentary inquiries , though only post-covid are most considering the impacts on housing and housing affordability . Rather these inquiries have considered impacts to conventional tourist accommodation , potential to bring economic value and community impacts such as increased demand for services and amenities and on party houses . The outcomes of these inquiries have largely been lenient on the operations of STRA , these have been based on limited research into the value and disruptive impacts of this offering of accommodation .
VOL 17 NO 2 2024 20 www . edaustralia . com . au