The Sharing Economy in Greece

In a report on the Sharing Economy in Greece commissioned by the Hellenic Chamber of Hotels:

The Current Regulatory Framework in Greece In recent years, the Greek state has been active in terms of introducing legislation aimed at removing bureaucratic obstacles, simplifying procedures, and facilitating in general business growth in non-hotel accommodation establishments (e.g. villas and apartments). In this context, the following concerns arise due to the growing activity of the online platforms of the sharing economy in Greece: Owners cannot rent their properties to tourists for 30 days or less, unless they have met certain requirements in order to acquire the operation license issued by the Greek Tourism Organization (Laws 4254/2014, 4276/2014). Accordingly, a big concern, especially in the case of urban centres such as Athens, is to what extent all the accommodation options (e.g. residential flats) provided by the online platforms of the sharing economy comply with the limitation of 30 days or possess the relevant license. In the first case, another area of concern is whether beneficiaries pay taxes after informing the Greek state that they rent out their residential flats to tourists for more than 30 days.

In the case of summer resorts in particular, the key concern is to what extent all the accommodation options provided by the online platforms of the sharing economy to tourists possess the operation license issued by the Greek Tourism Organisation. For all the officially registered units of non-hotel accommodation (e.g. villas, houses and apartments) in Greece, this is a matter of great importance in terms of figuring out whether they compete on a level playing field with the hosts of Airbnb and other platforms.

A final area of concern is to what extent the apparatus of the Greek state has so far achieved to enforce the law in terms of collecting fines or imposing penalties on a variety of cases (e.g. when owners rent out their residential flats to tourists for up to 30 days, when owners rent out entire properties such as villas and secondary residences to tourists without possessing the operation license issued by the Greek Tourism Organization or for more than 3 months per year, when individuals advertise the provision of any kind of tourist services without again possessing the operation license issued by the Greek Tourism Organisation - www.visitgreece.gr).

Data for Airbnb in Athens

Inside Airbnb

Inside Airbnb provides data compiled from the Airbnb web-site for listings available for Athens.

A conservative occupancy model has been built in order to estimate Occupancy Rates, Income per Month and Nights per Year. More information on the methodolgy of the occupancy model can be found in the disclaimers.

Inside Airbnb: Athens uses the following parameters:

A high availability metric and filter of 60 days per year

metric and filter of A frequently rented filter of 60 days per year

filter of A review rate of 50% for the number of guests making a booking who leave a review

of for the number of guests making a booking who leave a review An average booking of 3 nights unless a higher minimum nights is configured for a listing.

unless a higher minimum nights is configured for a listing. A maximum occupancy rate of 70% to ensure the occupancy model does not produce artifically high results based on the available data

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Airbnb

Airbnb provides NO PUBLIC DATA to help understand the use of their platform and the impact on cities around the world.

Airbnb also provide NO DATA to cities or states to assist them in ensuring that Airbnb hosts and Airbnb are following the local laws.

Other data

Tom Slee regularly scrapes the Airbnb site to produce maps and analysis of Airbnb use around the world.

Acknowledgements