The spread of the Covid-19 pandemic and the related containment measures have had a very strong impact on tourist flows, which were practically halted for prolonged periods. Leveraging Airbnb's public data, which include major European tourist destinations, the work provides an in-depth analysis of the phenomenon up to early 2021, focusing on the short-term rental market.
The work shows that the outbreak of the pandemic has drastically reduced both the supply and demand for rental apartments. The accommodation structures most exposed to foreign tourism were the most affected and reacted by reducing prices. Given a similar spread of the infection, these trends were more intense the more stringent the containment measures imposed by governments were.
Published in 2023 in: Empirica, v. 50, 3, pp. 585-623.