Mr. Patrick Robinson:

We thank the Chairman and members of the committee for inviting Airbnb to attend today's session on a topic of great importance, as is evident from the engagement with the previous witnesses. We see this as a welcome opportunity to outline Airbnb's views, share some data of relevance to the committee's deliberations and ensure that we and our community are well understood. I am Patrick Robinson, Airbnb's director of public policy for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, and I am accompanied by Natasha Mytton-Mills, the policy manager for Ireland and the UK. As we answer the committee's questions, Natasha will be best placed to talk about the details of our engagement with authorities here in Ireland while I can assist the committee with understanding some of the wider context in Europe and around the world and also Airbnb's overall approach to policy.

Ireland is Airbnb's international home and we are extremely proud to be part of Ireland's thriving tourism industry. Our host community across Ireland welcomes a growing number of visitors from right around the world, providing an authentic local Irish welcome to guests. The opportunities presented by new forms of travel and tourism are significant. As the committee considers the potential impact on housing, it should balance that against other pressures in Ireland's biggest city such as the increasing shortage of guest accommodation which results in high prices for travellers and may affect Ireland's strategy to grow its tourism industry and attract major events such as the rugby world cup. Fáilte Ireland predicts that Dublin's visitor numbers will have grown by between 13% and 34% between 2015 and 2020, which is between 760,000 and 2 million new guests travelling to and within Dublin each year. Capitalising on underutilised space in Dubliners' homes could provide a sustainable, efficient and economically beneficial alternative to using valuable land to build new hotels.

I turn to the specific topic under discussion today. As many others have already said to the committee, the phenomenon of short-term rentals in Ireland is not a new one. Ireland has had a long tradition of non-hotel accommodation and non-professional hospitality. Online marketplaces like ours have added a new dimension to this existing activity, making it easier for people to share their homes and allowing for greater levels of transparency, safety and quality. The rapid growth of this new sector in the tourism market challenges long-established frameworks in tourism and housing law. Unlike many other cities and countries in Europe, Ireland lacks an up-to-date regulatory framework which clearly recognises home-sharing as a distinct kind of short-term rental activity. The data we have provided to the committee in our written submission supports the picture of Airbnb as a platform dominated by everyday people sharing their homes. At last count, in fact, 88% of our hosts in Dublin say they are sharing their primary homes. We have focused much of our submission on Dublin since that is where much of the public and political debate around housing has concentrated. We have also shared some data, however, on our community in rural and regional Ireland also. We appreciate that there are policy considerations right across the country, not just here in Dublin.

I digress for a moment to definitions. It is important for the committee to understand the key concept that has cropped up a few times in submissions from other stakeholders. When they create listings on Airbnb, hosts are asked whether accommodation is going to be offered to a guest as an entire place, a private room or a shared room. Looking at the total number of entire home listings in any given area is not necessarily an indication of impact on long-term housing. Very few of those listings would likely be available for long-term housing in the absence of Airbnb. The vast majority of these homes are places where Dubliners already live which means there is no simple or accurate conclusion to be drawn on the availability or affordability of housing in Dublin from a headline number of entire homes. The committee has heard from other contributors that they agree with that analysis. The data we share in our written submission supports that claim too. In 2016, a typical Airbnb host within, roughly, the administrative area of Dublin City Council earned €5,000 and hosted for just 51 nights. In more suburban and rural areas, those numbers are lower. Looking at County Dublin as a whole, 3,838 entire home listings were booked at some point in 2016, some 85% of which were rented for fewer than 161 nights.

Only 16 entire home listings were booked for more than 320 nights. A fuller breakdown of those numbers is in the submission and I look forward to discussing them with the committee. Moreover, 85% of the entire home hosts in County Dublin, that is, hosts who have an entire home listing, only have one such listing. Looking at the Airbnb platform on 1 June 2017, 1,432 hosts had only one entire home listing. Just 36 hosts had more than five, and that includes people who are managing properties on behalf of others.

If the aim of new planning guidance is to ensure long-term housing is not lost to short-term rentals, a key piece of analysis already referred to in this session is identifying the point at which short-term rental might become more financially attractive to a landlord than long-term rentals. This number is somewhat higher than many assume. Our preliminary analysis, and we want to see more work done on this, suggests that this tipping point can be up to circa 185 days per year, depending on the neighbourhood. In 2016, only 550 entire home properties were booked via Airbnb for more than 160 nights. To put this another way, these account for just one in every 1,000 housing units in County Dublin.

We have participated in independent studies of housing impacts in a number of global markets, most recently in London and Berlin. Experts have consistently concluded that the size and pattern of the Airbnb community has no significant impact on long-term housing costs, especially when compared with other more powerful factors. The Government has said it wants to clear up the position for professional operators with some clear guidance over when planning permissions are required. We welcome that approach. At the opposite end of the market, however, we see this as a great opportunity to clarify the picture for people using the home they live in to welcome guests on an occasional basis. As the representatives from Threshold pointed out earlier, these home shares currently exist in what is quite an uncertain framework. We welcome a policy framework that would clear things up for them.

Ireland is not unusual in considering its response to the growing collaborative economy. We have considerable experience in working with governments across the world to look at how new regulations can be designed and applied to these new forms of accommodation, and we welcome the chance to talk about the approaches adopted in other places. Some of these have already come up today. Platforms such as Airbnb can play a role in helping users understand and follow rules, but ultimately, self-regulatory action needs to be underpinned by clear policy goals which are set by Government.

We note that Airbnb is not the only player in this market. As I have noted, Ireland has a long tradition of non-hotel accommodation. There are a number of other global platforms which are also active in the Irish accommodation market. The short-term rental sector is diverse and Airbnb is not necessarily representative of all of it. As the joint committee continues to consider this topic, and as the Government and Dublin City Council consider clarifying the planning rules, there should be a focus beyond Airbnb alone.

Given this committee's focus on housing issues, we have not gone into detail about many other aspects of our business such as the steps we take to keep hosts and guests safe or our obligations to report host earnings to the Revenue Commissioners. We would be happy to discuss any of those issues today or to provide supplemental evidence to the committee members if they believe it to be useful.

I reiterate that Airbnb is committed to working collaboratively with Government, in Ireland as elsewhere. We have already worked to conclude more than 300 agreements with governments around the world and look forward to looking closely with the Government, city councils and this committee as these discussions progress. We look forward to addressing any questions and we thank the committee members for their attention. I hope we will be able to provide useful information.