A bright future for home sharing in Andalusia

Earlier this year, Airbnb implemented a streamlined, online registration system to make it easier for hosts to comply with Andalusian laws.

Home sharing has come a long way in Andalusia, now enjoying a framework that legitimises the activity and provides clarity for the thousands of families who rely on Airbnb every month. The region has a law that makes registering easy while embraces people who share their own home occasionally providing a registration number.

As part of our work with the Junta de Andalucía, we agreed in February to add a new functionality to the platform, allowing hosts across Andalusia to register by obtaining a license number from the regional government, and clearly displaying this on their listing. For hosts already registered, we provided an easy way to directly include a registration number on their listing.

Over the last several months, we developed and implement this system and educate our hosts about the licensing process.

October 1 marked the full implementation of our agreement with the Junta de Andalucía. As part of our commitment, Airbnb deactivated listings that did not enter a licence number on their listing, which would have been obtained by registering with the Junta de Andalucía, or confirmed that they were exempt under the applicable law by the September 30 deadline.

We are pleased to share these insights about our community in Andalusia as it stands currently:

• Today there are 40.800 active listings on our platform.
• Our typical hosts are 47 years old and host for 33 days a year
• 53% of hosts are women
• 79% are aged from 30 to 59 year old
• 79% have just one listing and only 2% have more than five listings

The travel industry is transforming. We’re supporting local governments as they work to accommodate change in a way that makes sense for their own communities.

Airbnb has engaged with Andalusia to create a tool that helps support a responsible home-sharing community and is the only platform that has shown a commitment to share data with authorities, to make the detection of bad actors much easier. We’d like to see how other platforms cooperate in the same way with authorities to protect and support responsible home sharers.

Home sharing isn’t going away. As more and more Andalusians choose a flexible, affordable, and convenient option, it will only continue to grow. We encourage other platforms to cooperate with the government and be good partners during this time of transition.

We look forward to a bright future in Andalusia with a strong foundation of dedicated hosts, clear rules and a streamlined licensing process that supports a responsible home sharing community.