Tasmania’s Airbnb bookings triple in two years

Tasmania has seen an alarming rise in whole-house Airbnb bookings, which have increased three-fold in the last two years. WHAT IS MEANS FOR TOURISM >>

Tasmania has seen a dramatic rise in whole-house Airbnb bookings, which have increased three-fold in the last two years.

The Tourism Tasmania data shows there are 100,936 bookings for short-stay accommodation over the next three month period, compared with 35,511 in 2020.

The report notes a particularly sharp increase when border restrictions were eased in December 2021 to interstate travellers.

Hobart and Launceston’s bookings tripled since 2020, whereas Flinders Island saw its short stay bookings increase five fold over that same period.

The figures cover whole-house short stays, which comprised about 85 per cent of all listings from the AirDNA database.

These were grim figures for Ben Bartl, who fears a rise in whole-house AirBnbs will jack up property values and price local Tasmanians out of the market.

“It is concerning that there has been this significant rise in entire proprieties being used in the short-term accommodation sector,” Mr Bartl said.

“We would strongly encourage other local government areas to join with the Hobart City Council in imposing caps on the number of entire property listings that can be used for short-term accommodation.”

Bond

However Tasmanian Residential Rental Property Owners Association president Louise Elliot said these were promising numbers, but still nowhere near pre-pandemic levels.

Ms Elliot said international Airbnb guests were still few and far between, even though interstate visitors were starting to come back to the state.

“Bookings are nothing like they used to be in 2019. For occupancy most people are sitting at around 50 per cent, rather than 80 per cent,” she said.

“It’s nothing like pre-Covid times. It’s trending in the right direction, but it’s nothing like it was.”

Louise Elliot has complied a list of the most anti-development members of Hobart City Council. Picture: Nikki Davis-Jones

The report says that booking rates are rapidly closing in on “normal” levels for Tasmania before the Covid-19 pandemic.

“The level of demand in place for April now is close to the demand recorded in April 2019, meaning a particularly strong recovery for this period in this sector,” the report notes.

“At this time in 2021, Tasmanians were able to enjoy unrestricted intrastate travel, and interstate travel had resumed from most interstate destinations, with some experiencing travel restrictions.”

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