For every 14 new Airbnb rooms in Madrid, a restaurant opens

Anyone who knows the center of Madrid well can appreciate the change it has experienced due to tourism: where there used to be a butcher shop, a fishmonger or a hardware store, a bar, another bar and another bar now operate in its place.

Now, a study by the Complutense University has put figures on the phenomenon and has established a clear relationship between the gastronomy boom and tourism: a restaurant business is inaugurated for every 14 new rooms on the tourist housing platform Airbnb in one same census section (a territorial unit where between 1,000 and 2,500 people live).

Airbnb offers 25,543 accommodations in Madrid, according to the research website InsideAirbnb.

The impact of this platform on the rise in housing prices has been studied, but less focus has been placed on how it is transforming neighborhood commerce, says Alberto Hidalgo, principal investigator of this joint study with the Escuela de Altos. Advanced IMT Studies Lucca (Italy) which has been published in

the Journal of Regional Science.

The authors focused on the period between 2014 and 2019, years in which Madrid experienced a spectacular 60% increase in tourism flows.

At that stage, the Airbnb accommodations studied went from 2,153 to 12,763 (the researchers excluded offers that did not have recent reviews and those where tourists live with the guest) and catering establishments (bars, restaurants, fast food establishments or cafes). ) grew from 15,660 to 17,212.

Researchers have wondered whether the growth of restaurants could be due to an increase in the purchasing power of Madrid residents or to changes in consumer habits that have made visiting the center more common, but they introduced statistical control methods that led them to rule out these hypothesis.

In fact, they discovered that the greatest increase in bars next to new Airbnb accommodations has occurred in census sections outside the Centro district, such as the neighborhoods of Embajadores, Goya, Palos de Moguer, Recoletos, Trafalgar or the area near the Barajas airport.

The study also found that the same increase of 14 Airbnb listings in a neighborhood means 11 new jobs in the hospitality sector, such as waiters and cooks.

This economic impact of Airbnb on restaurant businesses and employment has also been observed in two other studies in the United States, one in the State of Texas and another in New York City.

The authors assume that hotels also contribute to the hospitality boom, but decided to focus on the effect of Airbnb because these accommodations are distributed more widely across the map of Madrid unlike hotels.

Displaced Madrid residents

The result of this isolated study shows benefits for the city, but Hidalgo wants to emphasize that this research is the sister of another published last year in which they verified how commerce focused on neighborhood needs is disappearing in the areas where Airbnb grows, precisely displaced through these bars and restaurants.

More information

Madrilenians fed up with tourists leave the center: “We have lost”

“The economic effect in terms of job creation is positive,” says Hidalgo, “however, we are moving towards a city that is much more hyper-specialized in the restaurant sector and that is going to end up displacing the local population, either because is out of place or due to the increase in rental prices.

In the end, this ends up in a political decision about the type of city we want, do we want more restaurants or more butcher shops?”

The mayor of Madrid, José Luis Martínez-Almeida, announced in October that in 2024 he would introduce a new regulation of tourist rentals, but details about that reform remain unknown.

The conservative councilor says he is making an effort to inspect and sanction illegal tourist homes, but defends that tourism has become “the watchword of the city.”

The opposition criticizes that Almeida puts the interests of businesses before those of neighbors.

This unrest is palpable in the city, where some residents are packing their bags, tired of the inconvenience caused by tourists.

The authors believe that politicians can build on this research to regulate the market, so that Airbnb accommodations are distributed across cities in a more balanced way.

They propose promoting this type of tourist offer in areas other than the center, where its most positive effects could be noticed: “The redistribution of tourist flows throughout the city is key to the survival of the sector,” they conclude, “since its effects "Harmful effects on residents in central areas can fuel reactions against tourists, which could endanger the entire sector."

Write to the author at

fpeinado@elpais.es

or

fernandopeinado@protonmail.com

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