The proliferation of Airbnb and similar vacation rental platforms has been a boon the tourism industry from some perspectives. These services offer a wide range of accommodation options for travelers that suit their specific needs, sometimes better than hotels can. In a smaller city like Saskatoon, Canada, there are approximately 1,500 active Airbnb rentals in action throughout the year. And the bigger the center, the more vacation rentals you'll find.
Unfortunately, that isn't sitting well with locals in many tourism hot spots, particularly Greece. Depending on where you look for you stats, there were reportedly 13,000 to 18,000 Airbnb rentals in Athens alone in 2024. Those number tend to fluctuate when you start talking about the different types of rentals as well as what length of stay does to their definitions. Regardless, tens of thousands of homes across the country are now vacation rental properties.
This has caused huge changes in neighborhoods popular with tourists, drastically raising the cost of living and forcing locals out. Additionally, far too many of the rentals are low quality cash grabs that lack basic amenities and services. The rapid proliferation of vacation rentals in Greece has proven to be a bad thing for both locals and tourists, something authorities are working to address.
The Greek government is in the process of instituting new regulations to heavily limit the types of buildings and spaces that can be used as vacation rentals on platforms like Airbnb. Thousands of Airbnbs will either have to make major upgrades or remove their services from the platform. Ultimately, the goal of these new rules is to create sustainable tourism growth that supports the local population as well as putting Greece's best foot forward with visitors from around the world.