Throughout the years, Airbnb has distanced itself from the sharing economy discourse that the company used to frame its activities, which evoked characteristics such as collaborative and sustainable. While merging the rental and hospitality markets and with the increasing presence of professional tech-driven agents, the platform has constituted a global network of a highly organized industry of short-term rentals. As pointed out by various scientific analysis, it’s evident that Airbnb imposes a wide number of challenges to cities where its activities are reproduced, especially related to housing unaffordability and financialization, overtourism, gentrification, labor conditions and so on._x000D_
Numerous scholars around the globe have sought to explain the spatial dynamics of Airbnb and its impacts for urban citizens. In spite of that, most of the works have focused on the American and European cities, which has contributed to the universalization of such experiences. Hence, other contexts, like the Latin American one, have been briefly approached, a situation that requires further attention in order to construct a wider understanding of Airbnb’s spatiality and consequent conflicts._x000D_
The purpose of this research is to present the preliminary results of the author’s doctoral investigation by discussing the spatial distribution of Airbnb in the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a special focus on the professional agents’ practices. According to the portal AirDNA, Rio de Janeiro has around 24.482 accommodations listed on Airbnb, one of the platform’s biggest markets across the globe. In addition, multiple companies have been participating in Airbnb’s platform ecosystem, the biggest of them concentrating up to 177 listings. Therefore, it’s urgent to reflect upon how Airbnb’s industry is being structured in Rio de Janeiro’s territory and how determined real estate agents are responsible for this market consolidation.

Pedro Henrique Cícero Ferreira
University of Lisbon

 
ID Abstract: 548