The Impact of COVID-19 on the Short-Term Tourist Accommodation Rental Market in Spain. A Comparison Between Cities

Abstract

According to the World Tourism Organisation, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a great impact on the tourism market, with a simultaneous fall in supply and demand. This paper seeks to analyse whether there were differences in the rental price of tourist accommodation in Barcelona and Madrid as a consequence of the pandemic. As well as whether there were variations in the prices and availability of the number of tourist accommodations in both cities. In order to carry out this research, a database has been constructed with information on the accommodation advertised on http://insideairbnb.com/, for the period 2019–2021, with a final sample of 64,268,682 and 64,008,627 records for Barcelona and Madrid respectively. Several descriptive analyses and hypothesis tests have been carried out considering prices and the number of accommodations as the target variables. The results show statistically significant differences between prices and the number of accommodations between these two cities. In particular, a decrease in the number of accommodations is observed in both cities as a consequence of the state of lockdown and alarm. Finally, in both cities, the results show that the prices of available accommodation are higher than the prices of unavailable accommodation.