The spatial inequality of Airbnb revenue in Amsterdam Livia Blonk 11116994 GIS methods Sociale Geografie en Planologie Dhr. Dr. Rowan Arundel Universiteit van Amsterdam 11.01.2019 Contents Contents .....................................................................................................................................................................2 Chapter 1: Introduction ..............................................................................................................................................4 Chapter 2: Literature review ......................................................................................................................................6 What is Airbnb ........................................................................................................................................................6 The economic effects of Airbnb .........................................................................................................................7 Positive effects ...................................................................................................................................................7 Negative effects .................................................................................................................................................8 Gentrification and income inequality ................................................................................................................8 Factors influencing Airbnb participation and revenue ..........................................................................................9 Airbnb and hosts’ education ..............................................................................................................................9 Airbnb and hosts’ income and wealth ............................................................................................................ 10 Airbnb and hosts’ ethnic background ............................................................................................................. 11 Other factors influencing Airbnb participation and revenue .............................................................................. 12 Personal choices ............................................................................................................................................. 12 Legal aspects ................................................................................................................................................... 13 Geographical aspects ...................................................................................................................................... 13 Airbnb in Amsterdam .......................................................................................................................................... 14 Legislation on Airbnb in Amsterdam .............................................................................................................. 14 Airbnb and fraud in Amsterdam ..................................................................................................................... 15 Chapter 3: Conceptual model .................................................................................................................................. 16 Chapter 4: The hypothesis ....................................................................................................................................... 17 Chapter 5: Data and methodology .......................................................................................................................... 19 Methodology ....................................................................................................................................................... 19 The research questions ................................................................................................................................... 19 Difference between socio-economic characteristics and socio-economic status .......................................... 20 Amsterdam as case study ............................................................................................................................... 20 The neighbourhoods as research units ........................................................................................................... 22 The data .............................................................................................................................................................. 24 Limitations on the Airbnb data ....................................................................................................................... 24 Difficulties in measuring socio-economic characteristics of a neighbourhood .............................................. 25 Operationalization table ..................................................................................................................................... 26 2 The analysis ......................................................................................................................................................... 27 Calculations of the Airbnb revenue .................................................................................................................... 29 Chapter 6: The results ............................................................................................................................................. 32 Results of the preliminary analysis ..................................................................................................................... 32 Results of the statistical analysis ......................................................................................................................... 42 Airbnb participation per neighbourhood ....................................................................................................... 42 Airbnb revenue per neighbourhood ............................................................................................................... 42 Airbnb revenue per host ................................................................................................................................. 42 Airbnb revenue based on the general neighbourhood-SES ........................................................................... 43 Airbnb participation among students ............................................................................................................. 43 Multicollinearity test....................................................................................................................................... 43 Chapter 7: Discussion .............................................................................................................................................. 44 Airbnb participation per neighbourhood (SQ 6) ................................................................................................. 44 Airbnb revenue per host (SQ 7) .......................................................................................................................... 45 Airbnb participation among students (SQ 9) ...................................................................................................... 46 Airbnb revenue per neighbourhood (main research question) .......................................................................... 46 Consequences for the city of Amsterdam (SQ 10) .............................................................................................. 48 General discussion of the research ..................................................................................................................... 49 Chapter 8: Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 52 Literature ................................................................................................................................................................. 54 Appendix .................................................................................................................................................................. 59 Appendix 1: calculations for the ‘general’ socio-economic status (SES) measure.............................................. 59 Appendix 2: geo-localization of the data on the socio-economic status ............................................................ 59 Appendix 3: geo-localization of the data on Airbnb ........................................................................................... 60 Appendix 4: details on how the Airbnb data has been adapted to the necessity of this research .................... 60 Appendix 5: Airbnb participation and revenue per owner-occupied dwelling maps ......................................... 62 Appendix 6: the results of the regression analysis ............................................................................................. 64 Appendix 7: the data tables ................................................................................................................................ 77 3 Chapter 1: Introduction Since its foundation in 2008, the worldwide popularity of Airbnb grew exponentially (Wachsmuth and Weisler, 2018). With more than five million listings in more than 81 thousand cities, the online platform for the rental and booking of private accommodations became one of the most popular ways to