Damaging impact of AirBnB on Athens
In Greece, it is a very Greek thing to do to sit and chat, and that is what I was doing one afternoon and evening whilst eating and having a beer or two whilst sat outside Little Tree, a bohemian bookshop cum coffee shop, a stone’s throw below The Acropolis.
We were talking about the destruction of Greece by the EU and turning Greece into a debtor’s prison, the money that flowed into Greece and straight back out to bail out French and German banks, the destruction of Greece to set an example to other vassal states that may think to challenge Greece.
The conversation turned to AirBnB, money laundering, dirty Russian and Turkish and Chinese money being laundered to buy up whole neighbourhoods on the cheap, people being kicked out of their apartments, rents being forced up.
In Kolonaki and Acroploli, the area is being emptied of local people.
Anther problem which is prevalent in Barcelona and Amsterdam, neighbourhoods being turned into ghettos by bad tourists, apartment blocks with strangers wandering through.
The people I was conversing with had direct experience of drunk tourists, noise, threats of violence.
Lack of planning, tax avoidance, no insurance, local taxes not paid.
When apartment blocks are being bought it exposes the myth of renting out a spare room to travellers, of renting out the house when away from home for a few weeks.
FairBnB is to run four pilot projects in Amsterdam, Barcelona, Bologna, and Venice. Initially a coop, it will hopefully be turned into an open coop.
Athens needs to be included, making five cities in the initial pilot.
Overtourism is hitting Athens. The main problem the cruise ships, floating all-inclusive hotels.
When a cruise shop docks, the streets are clogged with the passengers, they provide little if any benefit to the local economy, the tour buses add to the problem with noise and air pollution.
Afterword
AirBnB is not about home sharing.
As the recent Toronto study shows, and as my experience in Athens, it is about kicking people out of their apartment blocks, or indirectly through rents being pushed up, of undesirable elements in residential areas, or worse, within apartment blocks.
In Athens, locals are being kicked out of Acropoli and Kolonaki.
I talked with many locals, all told me the same story, of Acropoli and Kolonaki being depopulated.
One friend told me of an hour and a half train commute, that not counting getting to and from train stations either end.
Another friend told me the same story, of long commute from family home to work, unaffordable to live in Athens.
Another friend last year, told me of her long day, Metro to the port, then a long trip by ferry to family home on an island.
Until these conversation, I had naturally assumed all the people I met lived and worked in Athens.
I also talked to hoteliers. Was AirBnB a problem? A big yes.
Lessons learnt from Toronto need to be very quickly applied to Athens.
AirBnB unregulated and out of control exacerbates overtourism, now a major problem in cities across Europe, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Prage, Florence, not only Athens.
