Airbnb giving vouchers to encourage more short lets in key cities

Airbnb is giving away £100 vouchers to anyone in the UK who shifts into the short lets sector for the first time during the period of the Platinum Jubilee in June.

It says the incentive is to make people “make the most of the increased demand for holiday accommodation” and will apply to first time short lets in London, Brighton, Oxford, Manchester, Liverpool, Bournemouth, Leeds, Bath, Birmingham, Bristol, Southampton and Cambridge.  

Last year Airbnb offered a similar so-called “welcome bonus” to new short lets inn Glasgow at the time of the climate change COP26 conference. 

“New hosts can list a room or entire home on Airbnb” says a statement from the platform.

“Airbnb offers a unique opportunity for communities to benefit from the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee as celebrations sweep across the UK and families visit loved ones over the additional bank holidays. Homesharing helps cities use existing space to scale up their capacity and welcome visitors during peaks in demand and empowers locals to provide sustainable and affordable accommodation, benefitting the local economy” explains Amanda, Cupples, general manager for Airbnb in northern Europe.

The platform claims that on average half of all new listings secure a booking within five days of activation. 

The new offer makes no reference to whether Airbnb checks that applicants are former long-term landlords who switch to short lets.

In a separate document called Airbnb’s ‘Healthy Tourism Commitment’ the platform says it would remove landlords from its platform if it knows tenants have been illegally evicted - but this makes no reference to deterring long-term landlords from making a switch to short lets in any other circumstance.