Airbnb in Copenhagen, Denmark: The Short- Term Rent Gap, Gentrification & the Housing Market

Abstract: Short-term tourists visiting formerly residential areas are a potential source of conflict as the short-term tourists change the place they are visiting and represent an inconvenience to residents. This research uses a mixed methods approach with the short-term rent gap framework introduced by Wachsmuth and Weisler (2018) as the quantitative and an additional online expert interview as the qualitative part to analyse the effects of short-term rentals hosted on Airbnb on gentrification processes and the housing market in Copenhagen, pre- and during Covid-19. In Copenhagen, Airbnb is widespread in the city and the hotspot districts are København N and København V. One possible way that Airbnb influences the housing market is that buyers calculate the additional revenue from Airbnb in when buying their apartment. Due to the regulated nature of Copenhagen’s housing market there is no gentrification process underway that is led by short-term tourists, rather the gentrification that occurs in the city is led by the city itself by implementing major urban regeneration projects. The gentrification process that Airbnb adds on is a form of exclusionary displacement. Covid-19 did impact the available listings on Airbnb significantly as a 70% decrease of listings was investigated in comparison from January 2020 to January 2021. Nevertheless, was the spatial distribution of entire home Airbnb listings resistant in Copenhagen.