INFO FRANCEINFO. Airbnb launches a national access portal to its data for French cities

On the occasion of the French Mayors' Show, which starts Tuesday at Porte de Versailles in Paris, Airbnb is launching a national access portal to its data for French cities, Franceinfo revealed on Monday.

At the end of October, deputies and senators meeting in a joint committee reached a common version of a bill aimed at better regulating the market for furnished tourist accommodation, such as Airbnb.

The text plans in particular to generalize the registration number for all furnished accommodation (main and secondary residence), to oblige the lessor to provide proof of ownership or even to give mayors the possibility of lowering the rental threshold from 120 90 days per year for primary residences. At the beginning of November, Parliament finally gave the final green light.

In this context, the portal – built at the request of cities, indicates Airbnb – gives local elected officials access to a set of data and trends observed on Airbnb, “allowing us to better understand the main tourist flows and the activity of hosts, to evaluate the benefits of furnished tourist rental locally and to visualize the share of furnished tourist accommodation dedicated to short stays within each district”.

Among the data that will be provided by the portal: “The number of nights and travelers hosted by hosts, the economic benefits generated by the stays”or even “the number of accommodations and their nature (homestay, main residence, secondary residence or dedicated tourist furnished rentals) within the city and in each district”.

Airbnb specifies that this portal “will be updated regularly” and will be “accessible on request to all municipalities that wish it. (…) Cities can request access by filling out the form on the portal home page.” The purpose of this tool is to “allow cities to define, when necessary, targeted and proportionate local regulations, at the level of each district”.

“With the new regulatory framework recently voted on, cities facing housing issues will soon have the opportunity to use a range of effective tools to develop and implement their own policy governing short-term rentals”explains Clément Eurly, director of Airbnb France.

Airbnb – present in more than 29,000 cities in France – claims that under previous legislation it already collaborated with 350 cities in France “by providing them with data on host activity and giving them access to tools to facilitate compliance with the rules”. As a reminder, the recently passed bill gives all mayors in France the possibility of implementing local measures governing short-term rentals (compared to 4,000 municipalities previously considered in tight areas).