Airbnb Submission to New South Wales Visitor Economy Strategy 2030

Airbnb warmly welcomes the opportunity to comment on the New South Wales Visitor Economy Strategy 2030. As a key contributor to the state’s thriving visitor economy, Airbnb and our community of hosts remain committed to welcoming guests to NSW and spreading the benefits of tourism to towns and communities across the state.

Airbnb wholeheartedly supports the guiding principles and pillars of the strategy which should ensure that the state is well placed to grow the visitor economy sustainably, and with the future in mind. With a multitude of destinations outside of urban locations, NSW is uniquely placed to capitalise on emerging demands from local and international travellers, many of whom have a strong desire to visit remote and regional locations to embrace authentic experiences.

Short-term rental accommodation continues to play a critical role in supporting visitation across NSW, including in areas not well serviced by traditional accommodation. For many hosts on Airbnb, hosting is an economic lifeline that allows them to generate supplemental income to help make ends meet and keep up with the rising cost of living. It also allows them to connect with guests from all over the world and showcase all that their local community has to offer, including the best local restaurants, cafes and tourism attractions.

According to Oxford Economics, in the year to March 2023, guests on Airbnb spent a staggering $3.65 billion in New South Wales, supporting 27,900 jobs and contributing $4.36 billion to Gross State Product.¹

Airbnb continues to be a collaborative partner to the NSW Government and Destination NSW. This year, Airbnb is the inaugural Community Partner of Vivid Sydney and proud sponsor of the Volunteer Program, which sees people from diverse backgrounds come together to ensure the public has a safe and memorable time.

Looking ahead, Airbnb strongly supports a whole-of-government approach to bring the Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 to life, and encourages ongoing collaboration with industry to ensure our tourism offerings continue to highlight the cultural vibrancy of NSW. Our community of hosts — everyday mums and dads who are passionate about showing off their corner of the state — are also eager to do their part to help grow tourism and jobs sustainably into the future.

We look forward to continuing our support for the NSW visitor economy and ensuring that hosting on Airbnb, and the economic activity it creates, helps to make local communities in NSW even stronger.

About Airbnb

Airbnb was born in 2007 when two hosts welcomed three guests to their San Francisco home, and has since grown to over 5 million hosts who have welcomed over 1.5 billion guest arrivals in almost every country across the globe. Every day, hosts offer unique stays and experiences that make it possible for guests to connect with communities in a more authentic way. In 2023, Airbnb’s community of hosts welcomed over 3 million guests to NSW.²

Airbnb in New South Wales

As the strategy notes, the tourism and visitor economy is a major source of income for many across New South Wales and this certainly applies to our Airbnb host community. 

Airbnb has a large community of hosts across the state for whom sharing their home is now part of their lifestyle. The overwhelming majority of our hosts are average Australians looking to supplement their income, with many hit hard by the current cost of living crisis. Most of our hosts in NSW are everyday people who share just one property (85%) on our platform.³

Importantly, the sharing economy helps build resilient communities where locals can create supplementary income, and robust economies that are supported by increased visitation and spending by Airbnb guests – often in areas that don’t traditionally benefit from the tourist dollar. A recent report by Oxford Economics using Airbnb data — The Economic Impact of Airbnb in Australia — found that guests who stay in listings on Airbnb make significant contributions to local economies and jobs. 

The COVID-19 pandemic had a profound impact on lives and livelihoods throughout the world, and its impact was deeply felt across the tourism sector. As the Airbnb community drove a rapid recovery across Australia, it created powerful economic ripple effects that supported businesses, such as shops, restaurants, bars, and cafes — which are often the foundation for life in local communities — and created jobs that went far beyond where travellers stayed and with whom. The report by Oxford Economics finds that Airbnb’s ecosystem and economic multiplier effect reaches deep into a number of industries throughout the economy, bringing job opportunities to a diverse range of communities far beyond those in which our hosts operate.

In the 12 months to March 2023, guests who stayed on Airbnb in NSW spent over $3.65 billion in local communities and contributed $4.36 billion to Gross State Product.⁴ This supported approximately 27,900 jobs around the state, including direct jobs such as cleaners, property managers or gardeners that service STRA, as well as indirect roles such as those in the retail, hospitality and tourism sectors.⁵ 

Airbnb is proud that our host and guest community can continue to contribute to the NSW visitor economy and help to meet the Strategy’s 2030 target of $65 billion in total visitor expenditure.⁶

Importantly, Airbnb helps to spread the benefits of tourism, with our guests and hosts making a significant contribution to rural and regional communities. Crucially, in the 12 months to March 2023, 64% of the total economic impact in NSW was attributed to regions outside Sydney.⁷

Airbnb is also playing a role in helping people remain in their homes and communities by providing the ability to supplement their income through home sharing. In a survey of NSW hosts on Airbnb, 73% said they plan to use the money earned from hosting to help cover the rising costs of living⁸, 45% said their hosting income has helped them stay in their home⁹ and 20% said they host to make ends meet.¹⁰ Notably, almost a quarter (23%) of NSW hosts work in either education, healthcare, hospitality or the arts.¹¹

Moreover, the supplemental income economically empowers women and older or retired persons — two thirds of Airbnb hosts in NSW identify as female and almost a quarter (23%) are 60 years or older.¹² In a 2023 survey of Airbnb hosts, 96% of hosts that live in NSW indicated that the STRA property they share is within their home state.¹³ As the cost of living rises and housing pressures persist, home sharing provides a lifeline for everyday Aussies in helping to make ends meet.

Regional dispersal and agritourism

Airbnb strongly supports the strategy’s target of generating $25 billion in regional overnight expenditure by 2030.¹⁴ Airbnb hosts and guests continue to support regional communities as key drivers of economic activity in areas not served by traditional accommodation. Analysis of Airbnb data and OpenStreetMap has shown there were over 92,000 guest arrivals in Australian communities with Airbnbs and no hotel infrastructure in 2022.¹⁵

This generated almost $27 million in host earnings throughout the country.¹⁶

Airbnb is uniquely placed to offer numerous accommodation options for a variety of travellers across the depth and breadth of the state, including in locations which have not previously enjoyed the benefits of the visitor economy.

The dispersal of tourists outside of traditional hotspots means the benefits of tourism can be spread far and wide across NSW, in some cases for the first time. Analysis by Oxford Economics reveals nearly two-thirds of the economic impact created by Airbnb’s host and guest community occurs outside Sydney, which means the benefits of tourism are spread to more communities.¹⁷ It’s clear that without home sharing, the opportunities for small communities and their businesses might not otherwise exist. By using Airbnb, guests have the ability to travel to more places, as compared to hotels that are traditionally located in higher-traffic, urban areas.

Showcasing all that regional communities have to offer is core to our business, and proud local hosts on Airbnb remain best placed to promote their unique corners of the state. This aligns closely with the Visitor Economy Strategy 2030 which prioritises additional investment in regional visitor economies to accelerate growth and visitation. 

With a multitude of destinations outside of urban locations, NSW is uniquely placed to capitalise on emerging demands from local and international travellers, many of whom have a strong desire to visit more remote and regional locations to embrace more authentic experiences. STRA continues to play a critical part in growing the opportunities for regional communities and providing much needed accommodation in towns across the state, all the while empowering locals to diversify their income streams – for example, through farm stays.

Driven by a desire for more local and authentic experiences, travellers from Australia and the world are turning to the Airbnb platform, particularly for agritourism and farm stay experiences. We see increased collaboration as the means to help maximise the success of hosts on Airbnb to offer local, authentic, people-powered travel experiences and create attractive, resilient, and sustainable destinations. 

Unsurprisingly, the quantity and quality of regional-based farm stays already listed on Airbnb is proof that agritourism is viable and in-demand. The 2023 Airbnb Host Awards featured numerous nominees from regional NSW, including those facilitating farm stays and hosting at nature retreats.

To enhance agritourism opportunities and help farmers across the nation diversify their businesses by offering farm stays, we are proud to have partnered with Australian Regional Tourism (ART). As part of this collaboration, we supported ART in their release of Australia’s first ever comprehensive agritourism strategy. This was made possible by funding from Airbnb and with the Federal Government’s Building Better Regions grant in October 2022, at the first ever national agritourism conference in Ballarat. It comes as farmers around the country seek answers to how they diversify their operations, generate meaningful off-farm income, and encourage visitors to new places.

We continue to provide information and advice for those prospective hosts in our regions who need assistance in establishing their farm stay.

Airbnb also notes, and has welcomed, the amendments to the Housing SEPP in 2023 which unlocked an exempt and complying development pathway for farmers to take up further tourism opportunities on their properties and diversify income streams. Initiatives like these further enrich our visitor economy and provide unique experiences that also benefit our regional communities amid a cost of living crisis.  

Event support 

Throughout NSW, our community of hosts helps to grow events tourism through the creation of unique accommodation supply. The surge capacity, or elastic supply, of our platform presents opportunities for attracting and hosting major events in both cities and regional towns,  such as live music and cultural festivals, sporting events, business conferences, or international exhibitions. We are encouraged to see that accelerated investment in world-class events is part of the 2030 strategy given that Airbnb is uniquely placed to support increased visitor arrivals throughout the state.

STRA continues to provide communities with agile and flexible ways to successfully host and meet guest demand. Major events on the state’s calendar, such as Vivid Sydney, FIFA Women’s World Cup, major music events and festivals have provided opportunities for hosts to earn supplemental income, but also ensure more visitors can be welcomed into the state, particularly when traditional forms of accommodation have reached peak occupancy. 

In February 2024, it was reported that hotels across Sydney’s CBD and Sydney Olympic Park had seen occupancy levels between 90%–100% during a number of major music and sporting events,¹⁸ reiterating the need for diverse accommodation options that support increased visitation during major events. 

In 2024, Airbnb is proud to support Vivid Sydney as the inaugural Community Partner and sponsor of the Volunteer Program. The program sees people from diverse backgrounds come together to experience and participate in Vivid Sydney, whilst helping to ensure the public has a safe and memorable time.

Airbnb data reveals that searches in Sydney have increased by almost 100 per cent¹⁹ on the same period last year, demonstrating the increasing popularity of the multi-artform festival.

During last year’s Vivid event, the average guest stay on Airbnb was around 4 days, with visitors taking the opportunity to enjoy the festival and all the vibrant experiences that Sydney has to offer.²⁰ This in turn supports local hospitality venues by providing retailers, bars and restaurants with an important economic boost during the colder months.

Additionally, the surge capacity and event support of STRA can present opportunities for local neighbourhoods to share in the benefits of tourism and help to bring the Creative Communities vision to life. With its focus on growing and supporting local activities in cooperation with local councils, STRA is well placed to help unlock visitation in diverse areas of the state and showcase NSW’s cultural assets. 

At Airbnb, we want to increase collaboration with cities by building greater dialogue with policy-makers and communities to advance shared goals. In response to the trends shaping the future of travel, living, and working ushered in by the COVID-19 pandemic, we partnered with Arup to publish a first-of-its-kind white paper — Evolving Urban Destinations across Asia Pacific — to inform policy settings and place-making in a drastically different world. The white paper recommended that Sydney foster greater connections with local neighbourhoods to promote tourism. In particular, it noted the opportunity to tap into cultural assets as pull factors that increase visitation to local centres, beyond the traditional tourist places in Sydney (e.g. Cabramatta Moon Festival or Ramadan night markets in Lakemba). 

As travel continues to grow, the use of STRA can address accommodation supply constraints for events across NSW highlighting the importance of ensuring that regulatory settings remain responsive to this.

Diversity of accommodation options and use cases

Every day, throughout NSW, guests from near and far travel throughout our state. As the strategy clearly notes, it’s important to recognise that the NSW visitor economy serves a range of different travellers for different reasons that are not always leisure or holiday-related. At Airbnb, we certainly see a range of different use cases that understandably require a diversity of accommodation options for overnight guests.

Approximately one-third of guests who stayed in Airbnb listings in Australia have cited reasons other than a holiday or visiting friends and family as the reason for their travel.²¹ Crucially, STRA is able to support people who require accommodation for compassionate reasons, including those who need to stay near hospitals for medical treatments, or those who need to visit loved ones who are in hospital. As noted, Airbnb also supports local communities that are lacking in traditional accommodation options, such as hotels, motels or caravan parks. This is particularly important to travellers wishing to stay near family or friends or access particular services in a specific location.

Airbnb has consistently supported family and group travel in NSW due to the flexibility and range of facilities that makes STRA more attractive for their stays. Across the Airbnb platform, more than 80% of bookings are group trips and we have introduced new features that make planning group trips easy.²² For example, through ‘shared wishlists’ guests can now easily share wishlists with others on their trip, inviting them to add homes, write notes and vote on listings. Additionally, our redesigned messages tab allows everyone on the trip to message with the host in a group thread. This simplified design consolidates all guest, host, and customer support messages in one place, making it easy to search across messages and optimise group communication.

Understandably, short-term rental accommodation is very well-suited to families as it reflects a typical home environment and allows multiple generations to stay together when travelling. Many listings include full kitchen and laundry facilities, backyards for pets, or multiple living spaces that allow families to travel with space and comfort.

Based on a survey of Australian Airbnb guests in 2023, multiple amenities were considered important when searching for visitor accommodation, with a kitchen being the most important (81%), followed by a laundry (60%), and outdoor space (46%).²³

These homes are often holiday homes or second homes that are used by owners throughout the year, but which also play an important part of our visitor economy.

Short-term rentals are also an enabler of modern workforces that provide flexibility and choice to help house workers in parts of the economy where they need to carry out short-term projects or assignments. We know of essential workers (such as nurses and FIFO workers) who use STRA to be in close proximity to their workplaces when on night shift and who share their properties on our platform when working away from home. 

Additionally, there are key workers in the construction industry who use STRA while working on infrastructure projects that support the growth and development of NSW. The cost of staying in, and availability of, traditional accommodation during these short, but regular stays is prohibitive for many nor does it meet their needs for accommodation with a home-like feel, separate functional spaces (e.g. bedroom separate from living area), furnished rooms, functioning kitchen, and convenient utilities (e.g. washing machine and dryer). Platforms like Airbnb provide cost effective options in circumstances where a long-term residential lease is not appropriate or available (e.g. stays of less than six months). 

The continued economic benefits this wide variety of visitors bring to small businesses such as cafes, restaurants, laundromats, grocery and specialty stores is critical to local communities across the state.

Usage of STRA in times of emergency 

Airbnb is committed to supporting all levels of government and emergency services in times of need. We believe a collaborative effort is crucial in ensuring preparedness in the face of potential emergencies.

Our community of hosts has the ability to offer their properties in extraordinary circumstances – such as the aftermath of an emergency or natural disaster – to house displaced persons or families. In some cases, these stays are offered by hosts, free of charge, through formal programs operated by Airbnb.org, or through ad-hoc arrangements with NGOs or displaced families directly. 

In 2019, NSW and Queensland residents impacted by the devastating bushfires had the ability to seek free temporary housing in more than 350 Airbnb listings provided as part of Airbnb’s Open Homes Program (a predecessor to Airbnb.org). The initiative was designed to identify and connect hosts willing and able to offer up housing to displaced residents, as well as emergency service personnel deployed to fight the bushfires.

In 2022, Airbnb initiated a similar program by sending a broad request to hosts in the Northern Rivers to open their homes to flood evacuees in cooperation with the Australian Red Cross.

Airbnb also offered support to the NSW Minister for Emergency Services and Reconstruction NSW ahead of the 2023/24 summer, in the unfortunate circumstances that accommodation support would be needed for bushfires or other emergencies.  

Trust and safety

Airbnb continues to prioritise the safety of our community and implement measures to deter parties and stamp out poor behaviour. Recent measures include:

• Our global ban on parties at Airbnb listings, permanently codified since July 2022. We believe there is a direct correlation between our implementation of the policy in August 2020 and a 44% year-over-year drop in the rate of party reports.
• A high-risk reservation screening system which uses technology to help identify reservations which may be problematic, to try to stop unauthorised parties before they start. This high-risk reservation screening can prevent bookings from being completed. It was first piloted in Australia in October 2021 and now occupies a long-term place in the company’s global anti-party arsenal.
• The Neighbourhood Support Line available at airbnb.com/neighbours, which allows neighbours to request a call from a specialised support agent and report problems. This allows Airbnb to investigate problematic behaviour which is brought to our attention.

Our host community 

The Airbnb host community plays a significant role in welcoming guests to New South Wales every day, showcasing the sights and sounds of their hometowns. As noted, our community of hosts — everyday mums and dads who are passionate about showing off their corner of the state — are also eager to do their part to help grow tourism and jobs sustainably into the future. For many, hosting on Airbnb is an economic lifeline that helps them to make ends meet, whilst also having immense flow on benefits to local businesses that help hosts maintain their listings. Below are two such hosts on our platform who utilise the income that hosting provides to empower themselves and their local communities.

Conclusion

Airbnb warmly welcomes the continued opportunity to work constructively with Destination NSW and the NSW Government to support the growth of the visitor economy, and also leverage opportunities to promote the state as a world-class destination, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region.

Airbnb is proud that our host and guest community can continue to contribute to the NSW visitor economy and help to meet the Strategy’s 2030 target of $65 billion in total visitor expenditure.

We are committed to supporting the sustainable growth of the visitor economy throughout NSW, ensuring that everyday people can benefit from the economic empowerment opportunities of hosting on Airbnb.