Airbnb in Luxembourg? "A potentially beneficial service"

Airbnb is a platform that doesn't always please everybody. Just look at France, where hotel-owners have filed a legal case for unfair competition.

While some choose to see Airbnb rentals as something harmful for local tourism, Etienne Schneider does not count himself among them.

Speaking about this subject, the minister emphasised the "interesting complement to the traditional tourist accommodations" which Airbnb can add to the Grand Duchy.

In his eyes, it's "a service that could be beneficial", which could "attract new type of clients" and which would thus contribute to "the diversity and attractiveness of the tourism services in a given destination."

A believer, he spoke about a recent European Commission study suggesting that the short-term accommodation supply contributes to a an overall increase in tourism and that "traditional accommodation businesses have not be negatively affected," despite the price competition they bring.

Airbnb and the hotel industry are not engaged in direct competition, according to this study which instead describes them as complementary to each other.

Important to know: some players (hotels, camp-sites) have even used Airbnb to supply a portion of their accommodation supply!

No problems so far. But is the Airbnb platform covered by a Luxembourg regulation?

SURE RENT, BUT IN WHAT CONDITIONS? 

In general, private individuals predominate in using Airbnb to offer or rent an accommodation. In Luxembourg, they are covered by the rules imposed by common law on contracts and liability.

In terms of owners, they are required to:

• Respect the rental criteria, cleanliness, hygiene, habitability and security set by the modified law of 25 February 1979.
• Report income coming from this business
• Fill out the traveller accommodation forms

In terms of tourists, the ministry has not specified anything, but has stated that more detailed evaluations are under way and that they must make it possible to better identify the sharing economy.

The findings are expected in the first quarter of 2019 and set out political, economic and strategic benchmarks to give a framework for the phenomena that Airbnb has become.

AIRBNB IN LUXEMBOURG: THE NUMBERS

According to the latest estimates that the economy ministry has made public, Airbnb only amounts to 70,000 nights per year (2017 figures)

As a comparison, last year, Luxembourg recorded some 3 million nights from all sectors together. This means that Airbnb only represents about 2.3% of accommodations rented in 2017 in the the whole country.