The head of public policy for Airbnb in Southern Europe, Valentina Reino, analysed the situation with respect to short-term rentals that currently prevails in Greece, during an interview with the Athens-Macedonian News Agency (ANA-MPA) on the margins of the Delphi Economic Forum X on Friday.

Talking to ANA-MPA journalist Nikos Drosos about the "specific aims of Airbnb in the Greek market" and "the development of short-term rentals" in the country, Reino noted a need to "differentiate what is overtourism and what is the housing discussion." 

"So overtourism is definitely a bigger issue, a bigger problem, but doesn't involve only short-term rentals. Actually, short-term rentals are a small portion of it because we need to consider that there are low-cost airlines bringing a lot of tourists, also there are ships, there are coaches, so you know, you need to have a holistic view of what is a phenomenon of overtourism. When we talk about housing, the situation is different, because what we think is that, of course, housing, it's a real issue that needs to be addressed and it's important. But we think that short-term rentals, this is also based on data, are actually a small portion of the total stock of houses. So the real issue is that there are plenty of empty homes. 

"In Greece, we are talking about more than two million empty homes. So there is an opportunity, actually, to bring these homes into the long-term market, to basically realign the housing market and look at the housing concern with a more holistic approach." 

Regarding the restrictions imposed by Greek authorities on short-term rentals, Reino noted that the Greek government implemented a freeze on the opening of new short-term rentals in the Districts 1, 2 and 3 of Athens. 
"We think that this measure goes into the right direction because it's a data-driven pilot that is going to be assessed at the end of the year to evaluate what was the impact of this measure. But what we think should be taken into account is actually that there are a lot of Greek citizens that are making an additional source of income via short-term rental. And these are the people that are renting out a room in their apartment or maybe the primary or secondary home. So let's say up to two apartments per owner. So these are casual hosts that live a part or all the year at their homes and they're just making an additional source of the income that should be protected. So our proposal would be to actually exempt this individual host from this freeze of new rentals. 

It would be best, Reino said, to differentiate these from "commercial activities that are the ones that are actually speculating and making big numbers around short-term rental, and protect the additional source of income of the people that have up to two apartments, basically."

Regarding transparency in the short-term rental market, both from a tax point of view and in general, Reino replied:"Absolutely. We made an agreement in 2021 with AADE, the Greek Tax Authority, to share data. It was an agreement that we made as Airbnb, together with Booking.com and Expedia. And basically every year we share data with the tax authority, for them to have full transparency of the market. And also we enforce the national registration. So everyone that lets short term rentals on Airbnb needs to have a registration number. This is important because it gives full data to the government to take informed decisions about regulation."
 

Asked about her estimates for the upcoming tourist season in Greece, Reino responded that it was "a bit too early to say at the moment, but what we are seeing is that Greece is always going to remain a top international travel destination. I mean, it has a lot to offer to travelers, so we are confident that it's going to be a good summer. What I want to actually mention here, which is very interesting, is a trend that we are seeing that travelers are more keen to visit, let's say, rural or 'hidden gems' outside the normal tourist hotspots. So I think this is a big trend that we could see growing in the market. 

Regarding availability for short-term rentals in these areas, she said that this exists and is "really a resource, because in those areas you don't have the, let's say, traditional accommodation and hotels, but you actually have second homes that could create a good benefit for the local community. 

The interview is also available at the link: https://youtu.be/aCvxftOH2R4