STR Unpacked

I took three weeks off. Europe did not.Three countries moved on short-term rentals while I was away, and each one reached for a different lever.Spain went for tax.→ The Supreme Court's ruling striking down the national rental registry (NRUA) took legal effect on 8 June. Regional licences stand, the national number does not.→ Owners who paid registry fees for a registration now declared illegal still have no route to a refund.→ On 29 June the government announced its response: a decree planned for July raising VAT on tourist lets to 21%, up from an exemption or 10% today, plus regulation of seasonal and room-by-room rentals. Its last housing decree was voted down in Congress, so this one is not a done deal.Ireland went for planning.→ Cabinet approved the Short-Term Letting Bill on 16 June. From December, anyone letting for stays up to 21 nights must register with Fáilte Ireland.→ New planning permissions in cities and towns over 20,000 people will generally be refused. The housing minister is calling it the strictest law in Europe.→ The data behind it: just under 29,000 short-term lets nationally, a third of them in Dublin.Italy went for enforcement.→ No new rules. The rules landed in January, when three or more properties started meaning a mandatory VAT number.→ This summer the tax agency switched on the machinery: cross-referencing guest registrations, platform data and electronic payments, with questionnaires already landing with hosts.Three levers, one direction. The compliance bar is rising everywhere, it is just coming through different doors. Knowing which door your market uses is the job now.Full breakdown on today's episode. Link in comments.Which of these three approaches do you think actually works, and which just moves the problem?

One mid-term booking is worth about seven short stays.Same platform. Same kind of property. Seven times the value per booking.The numbers behind that, from Rentals United and PriceLabs across 2025:→ A standard short stay averaged roughly €845 per booking → A mid-term stay of 30 nights or more averaged closer to €6,000 → Mid-term booking volume grew only modestly, and total value was broadly flat → So this is not a growth rocket. It is a high-value bufferWhy it matters now:→ Fewer turnovers, fewer cleans, fewer empty nights to chase → A handful of long stays can underpin a property's whole year → And in many markets, the rules that bite hardest, night caps, licensing, registration, are aimed squarely at short staysPush part of your calendar past 30 nights and, in a lot of places, you step outside the tightest part of the regime.Mid-term will not replace your short-let income. It is not meant to.But as a hedge against soft months and tightening rules, it is one of the quietest plays on the board.Are you running mid-term as a deliberate strategy, or just taking it when it lands?

Every city in Europe is cracking down on short-term rentals.So the sector must be shrinking, right?Eurostat's own data says the opposite.→ Short-stay nights booked via Airbnb, Booking and Expedia hit nearly 952 million across the EU in 2025 → That's up 11.4% on 2024, and 32.4% on 2023 → The entire EU accommodation market, hotels included, grew just 2.2% → Hotels, the biggest slice, stayed almost flat → Holiday lets and short stays grew faster than every other categoryThe segment politicians keep calling the problem is the one driving the growth.Caps went up. Fines went up. Delistings went up.Demand went up faster.That's not a loophole. That's guests voting with their bookings, in numbers regulation hasn't dented.The question for operators isn't whether the demand is there. It clearly is.It's who gets to supply it, and on what terms.What's your read? Is the enforcement wave actually changing your bookings on the ground, or not?

For years, the standards in this sector were voluntary. The good operators chose to meet a higher bar.That's changing. Those basics are becoming the framework everyone works to. Voluntary is becoming vital.And the sector has moved from the margins to a serious part of how this country does tourism.At 12:30 today I'm moderating a panel at SCALE UK on exactly that shift.From Voluntary to Vital: The Future of Short-Term Rental Licensing in the UKI'm joined by three people who've done the work to get us here:→ Fiona Campbell MBE, CEO, Association of Scotland's Self-Caterers → Alistair Handyside MBE, Executive Chair, PASC UK → Janet Uttley, CEO, STAAScotland has already been through licensing, so they've got the experience the rest of us are about to need. England's register still isn't live, which means how it lands is genuinely still open. Operators still have a say in the design.And the case keeps getting stronger. In Scotland, self-catering is 0.8% of the housing stock and adds close to £1bn to the economy. That's the kind of evidence shifting the conversation.What we'll get into:→ What England can learn from Scotland's rollout → What a register that genuinely works for operators looks like → What you can do on Monday morning to get involvedAt SCALE today? Come to the SCALE Stage at 12:30.

The UK's main short-term rental conference gave AI its own full day this year. First time it has happened.I'm at SCALE With AI in Brighton today, the day before SCALE UK.A few years ago AI was a couple of agenda slots. Now it is a standalone event with two stages and a room full of working operators.That tells you where the sector has moved.→ The question has shifted from "should we use AI" to "which tool does which job, and how many hours does it save" → The headline sessions are practical: a live AI guest-messaging demo, and how LLMs are changing the way guests and owners find you → But the session that matters most is the quietest one: building a single, centralised knowledge base → Your SOPs, brand voice, guest FAQs and owner info in one place, not spread across ten different docs → Because AI built on scattered information gives you scattered answersThe operators seeing real results did the boring part first. They built the foundation, then automated on top.The demos are the easy bit. The knowledge base is the work.Is your AI running on a single source of truth, or filling the gaps with guesswork?

Most of us in short-term rentals know AI exists. Far fewer of us are using it well. This episode is about closing that gap.My guest is Milena Nikolić, former CTO of Trainline and former senior director at Google Play, now founder of Heywa Labs. She has never run a rental, and that is exactly why she is on. She is one of those rare people who can explain anything, however complicated, in a way that actually makes sense. So I pointed her at our world.We cover what AI really is underneath the hype, why large language models work as well as they do, and why the conversational chatbot is a bad interface that won't last. Milena makes the case that ten blue links are dead, that guest discovery is shifting from search to delegation, and that the businesses who win will be the ones an AI chooses to put in front of a guest.We also get into how operators get found in this new world, what replaces traditional SEO, how advertising on AI platforms might be priced, and the one shift in guest behaviour that should be keeping every operator up at night.If you have ever wondered what AI actually means for how people find and book your properties, start here.

Europe's most expensive short-term rental markets in 2026 are mostly outside the EU.The regulatory squeeze gets the headlines. The rate data tells a quieter story.Fresh AirDNA figures for 2026:→ Switzerland: national ADR around 184 euros, 57 percent occupancy → Interlaken: 284 euros a night at 65 percent occupancy → Monaco: the most expensive market on the continent → Iceland: second priciest, near 189 euros a night → UK: top five, with Edinburgh at 225 euros and 68 percent occupancyAdd Norway, where premium-property demand rose 14 percent over 2025, and the pattern is hard to miss.The EU is where the registration and enforcement pressure is building. The strongest rates are coming from the markets sitting just outside it.That isn't luck. These are constrained-supply, premium markets with guests who book early and pay for quality.The lesson for operators isn't "go buy a chalet in the Alps."It's that the premium, professionally run end of the market is where the pricing power lives. Positioning beats postcode.Are you competing on nightly price, or building something guests will pay a premium to stay in?

Next week in Brighton, the short-term rental industry holds its first conference dedicated entirely to AI. Two days, two events — SCALE With AI on the Tuesday, SCALE UK the day after. And if you can get there, go.Here's why I'm saying that.For two years, "AI for rentals" has mostly meant one thing — a chatbot answering guest messages a bit faster. Helpful. But hardly the revolution it was sold as.This is different. The agenda's built from operator feedback, not vendor pitches — and SCALE doesn't let service providers buy tickets, so the room is actual operators, not people selling to them. That alone makes it rare.You've got a beginner's guide for anyone who's nodded along in meetings without touching the stuff, a live demo of a real-time guest comms system, sessions on automating ops without adding headcount, and a keynote on the big one — AI becoming a new distribution layer.That's the bit that matters. Guests are shifting from searching and browsing to asking and delegating. "Book me four nights near the coast" — and the decision happens inside the model. Before your listing. Before the OTA. Before you're even in the conversation.That's not a messaging upgrade. That's the funnel changing shape.If you run a serious STR business, this is the one to be in the room for. Brighton, 9th and 10th. I'll see you there.

Next week the Pope arrives in Barcelona.But forget the Pope for a second. Look at the calendar behind him.Mobile World Congress: 109,000 people. Smart City Expo World Congress. The UIA World Congress of Architects. 142 international congresses in 2025 fourth most of any city on earth.Barcelona has spent a decade becoming the events capital of Europe. And it worked.Now here's the number nobody puts next to that one.Barcelona has ~39,000 hotel rooms.That number is frozen.Hotel room supply grew 0.5% in five years. Not per year. In total, 2019 to 2024.There is exactly one hotel under construction in the city right now.This isn't an accident. The building moratorium is designed to stop new hotels. So when 100,000 people land in the same week, the hotels can't conjure rooms. They're legally capped.Which leaves one type of accommodation that can actually flex to absorb a peak:Short-term rentals.The exact thing Barcelona is removing all 10,101 licences, gone by 2028. That's an estimated ~46,000 tourist beds (averaging ~4.6 per licence, per the city's own PEUAT census). More than Barcelona's entire hotel-room stock.So read those facts together:→ A growing pipeline of mega-events→ A hotel base frozen by law→ More flexible beds than the city has hotel rooms being deletedYou can freeze the hotels. You can ban the apartments. Pick one and you can still argue it.Do both while actively recruiting more events and you haven't managed overtourism.You've just guaranteed the city sells out, prices spike, and visitors get priced into the next town.The Pope is just the version of this story with a date on it.

Everyone said 20 May was the day Europe's "wild west" of short-term rentals ended.Less than two weeks in, the first city to actually pull listings didn't touch the new EU rules.Porto cancelled 1,413 licences. Roughly 13% of its entire registered stock.The trigger? Not a night cap. Not a ban. Not the EU's new data system.A missing insurance document.🔻 1,413 AL registrations cancelled no proof of civil liability cover filed 🔻 50–60% sit in the historic centre, where they can NEVER be reactivated 🔻 The EU "mega-regulation" had nothing to do with itSo who actually loses?Not the platforms. Not the professional manager with clean files.The casual host who let a document expire.This isn't a war on short-term rentals. It's a clear-out of the amateurs and the pros just inherited the supply.Is your compliance file audit-ready? Or are you one missing PDF from a permanent cancellation?

+13.6%.That's UK short-term rental demand for this summer, versus last.Italy: +11.6% France: +8.7% Across Europe's top 20 markets: 6.4 million additional guest nights already booked for June to August.Seventeen out of twenty markets are pacing ahead of last summer.This is after the EU regulation went live. After Spain's national registry got struck down. After Barcelona's 2029 phase-out. After Amsterdam, after Florence, after Paris.Now here's the bit nobody's reporting.Spain, the most aggressively regulated market in Europe, is up 1.9%. The slowest of any major market.Germany has gone backwards.So while politicians keep telling us short-term rentals are the problem, guests are voting with their wallets in the opposite direction. And the harder a market regulates, the slower the growth.The demand is there.The question for operators isn't whether the summer comes.It's whether you're compliant enough to capture it when it does.What do we think as an industry? Is the data finally going to shift the conversation, or will the housing narrative keep winning?

I sat down with Reto from Elevate Software, and the origin story is what makes this one worth a listen.Reto and his team weren't software people who guessed at what operators need.They were running short-term rentals across two very different markets, Switzerland and Bali, hit the same operational walls every operator knows, and built Elevate Suite to solve them.That product is now what they take to market: software built by operators, for operators.We got into:→ Operating STRs across two completely different regulatory worlds→ How hospitality expectations differ between the Alps and the islands→ Why being operators first shaped a sharper product→ How automation is reshaping property management, and where Elevate goes nextIf you build or buy STR tech, the "built by people who actually ran it" test matters. This conversation is a good example of why.

Eight days ago the EU's short-term rental data regulation went live. Most of the industry filed it under "compliance admin" and moved on.That was the wrong thing to watch.Remember how this was sold to us? "It's just a data rail. It doesn't ban anything. It doesn't cap anything. It only makes local rules enforceable."Now look at what's being built directly on top of it.The Affordable Housing Act lands this year. It will give national and local authorities tools to identify "areas under housing stress" and apply caps on overnight stays, seasonal restrictions, even temporary freezes on new licences.So the thing that was "just data" eight days ago becomes the foundation for the thing that can switch your market off. The data layer was never the destination. It was the plumbing. The policy weapon was always the point.And here's the part that should sting. The same regulation sold to us as harmonisation is, by Airbnb's own EU affairs lead, already splintering into 27 different national systems. One law. 27 portals. And the compliant operator carries the cost of every single one.I'm not saying it's all downside. If you run a clean, licensed portfolio, stressed-area caps quietly remove your unlicensed competition and hand you pricing power. That's real.But don't let anyone tell you the regulatory story ended on 20 May. It didn't end. It just moved up a floor.The arguing has stopped. The building has started.How are you reading the housing act for your markets? Defensive moat, or the beginning of the squeeze?

The mainstream take is that regulation is coming for short-term lets and operators should brace. I think that misses it. Regulation being undecided is not a threat. It is a window.And here's what should worry operators: look at the rest of Europe. Spain, Italy, Greece, the Netherlands. In almost every case the sector only mobilised after the rules landed, when the leverage was already gone. England is the rare market where the detail is still being written. That advantage doesn't last.So the move isn't to brace. It's to organise. I'm a member of the STAA and I'd point anyone serious about this in their direction. They're already in the room on the use class and registration questions, with the relationships across Westminster to actually shape the detail. The more operators behind them, the louder that voice is.Shaping this now, before the statutory instruments land, is worth more than any amount of fighting it later.Are operators going to shape this, or wait to be shaped by it?What's your read. The window's open now, so what should operators be doing to get behind the people already fighting this?

pain built it first. Its own court just killed it.Spain's Supreme Court has struck down the national short-term rental registry, the one Madrid built to be the first EU country to comply with Regulation 2024/1028.The ruling is straightforward: the central government overstepped. Tourism is a regional power in Spain, and the state had no authority to run a parallel national system on top of registers the regions already controlled.A few numbers worth sitting with:→ ~111,000 homes had applications rejected under the system. Many may now relist, if they hold the right regional licence.→ FEVITUR puts the average loss per affected owner at ~€33,000.→ Compensation claims against the state could reach €160 million.It's worth being clear on what this isn't, though: it isn't deregulation. The Digital Single Window and platform data-sharing survived. Reporting continues. What changed is who holds the reins, the fight moved from Madrid back to the regions, where Barcelona still plans to revoke all 10,101 tourist licences by 2028.So this isn't simply a win for operators. It's a reminder of what happens when a government races to be first and builds on contested ground.Full breakdown in today's episode.

It's been a rough week in our space. EU Regulation 2024/1028 went live. Portugal's licences are vanishing. Italy's tax regime just got heavier. And Airbnb's Summer Release quietly absorbed half the services that used to set good operators apart.So here's a story going the other way.Albania. Non-EU. Record 12.5 million visitors in 2025. Non-resident overnight stays up nearly 38% year on year. The coast, Ksamil, Dhërmi, Saranda, is turning into one of the Mediterranean's most profitable STR frontiers, on property that still costs a fraction of Croatia or Greece.But the real lesson isn't the beaches. It's the regulation.While the EU spent two years building 27 national registration systems that launched into "27 different operational realities," Albania did the opposite. From January 2026, individuals declare STR income through one online platform. A flat 15% rate. No business number required.One looks like a compliance maze. The other looks like a single login.The EU isn't wrong to want data. But there's a real question worth asking: does harmonisation that fragments into 27 systems actually beat one clean national flow?The frontier didn't close this week. It moved.I unpack the full Balkans-versus-Brussels picture in today's episode. Link in comments.

Airbnb's Summer Release dropped this week.The travel press is losing its mind over car rentals and grocery delivery.They're missing the actual story.Every "new service" Airbnb just launched is something good operators already do. The stocked fridge. The luggage storage. The airport pickup.Airbnb just turned your differentiator into a feature in their app.And the new AI tools? They raise the floor. A single-listing amateur now looks almost as professional as you do.So here's the uncomfortable question:If Airbnb commoditises every service you offer... what's actually left that's yours?That's not a feature update. That's Airbnb redrawing the line on what operators get to own.What do you think is still defensible?

Tomorrow the EU's biggest STR regulation in history goes live.One law. 27 countries. One system.Except not really.Airbnb came out yesterday and said it plainly: not every Member State is ready. Platforms are looking at "27 different systems" on day one.Some portals will work tomorrow. Some won't.Where they don't, the regulation's verify-and-suspend teeth don't bite.But here's the bit being missed:Paris Airbnb listings down 22.9% YoY. Madrid down 15.3%. Barcelona down 11.6%.The supply contraction everyone's bracing for? Already happened.Tomorrow isn't the start. It's the reveal which countries can actually enforce, and which ones spend the rest of 2026 catching up.Which Member State is going to be furthest behind tomorrow? Drop your guess below

The EU regulation goes live in two days.Everyone's checking their registration numbers.Almost no one is checking the question that actually decides who carries the loss.Who is the legal host?In France, your property management company can register using its own SIRET. The PM is the host.In Spain, the registration is tied to the owner's land registry record. The owner is the host.Same regulation. Two completely different liability profiles.Run a portfolio across both? You have two different businesses pretending to be one.Here's the scenario nobody's running:Wednesday, the data starts flowing. An owner forgets to renew a safety certificate. The authority suspends the registration number. Airbnb has 10 working days to take the listing down. 48 hours if it's serious.You did nothing wrong. You lose the revenue anyway.Every PMA in Europe needed updating six months ago. Owner-side failure should mean owner-side liability. Lost nights, owner pays.If your contract doesn't say that, you're not running a property management business. You're absorbing risk you don't own.What's the line your PMAs actually take on this?

I sat down with Georgina Kennerknecht Biosca, founder of Liliho, and honestly she's one of the most captivating founders I've had on the podcast.Georgina is relatively new to short-term rentals but brings a serious track record from outside the industry, and you can feel it in how she's approaching the problem.We got into:→ Why DIY AI keeps failing property managers→ Where AI's real limits sit in guest comms→ How Liliho is combining messaging and task management in one place→ Where the STR industry is heading as it professionalisesIf you're a property manager wrestling with comms volume or just curious where AI is actually useful (and where it isn't) this one's worth a listen.

951 million guest nights.That was the EU short-term rental market in 2025.But the headlines all go to the same five countries.Spain. France. Italy. Germany. Portugal.Here's what Eurostat just published that nobody's talking about.In Liechtenstein, Iceland and Malta, over 95% of every short-term rental booking is an international guest.The highest concentration of foreign demand anywhere in Europe.And Malta just posted +37.5% growth in Q4 2025. The fastest in the entire EU.While operators in Barcelona and Paris fight for compliance and shrinking margins...The smaller European markets are quietly outgrowing everyone.So here's the question for the industry.Are we all underwriting the same five countries because the data tells us to?Or because the headlines tell us to?What do we think?(Apologies for the voice in today's video)

Yesterday's King's Speech introduced the Overnight Visitor Levy Bill as standalone legislation.Mayors in England will get the power to charge a tourist tax on overnight stays.West Yorkshire and York have already said yes.Manchester and London are expected to follow.National projections? £1.2 billion a year.Here's the part the headlines are missing.The operator is the legally liable party.You collect it. You record it. You remit it quarterly.And because legally you're paying the levy, VAT gets charged on top of it.Tourist tax in name. Operator tax in practice.So what do we think as an industry?Is this fair fiscal devolution that funds the cities we operate in?Or another compliance burden dressed up in different language?Edinburgh live July. Wales April 2027. England likely 2027 or 2028.The clock has started.

Every time a European city cracks down on short-term rentals, hotel revenues go up.That's not opinion. That's the data.Amsterdam: Airbnb listings down 54% (2019–2024). Hotel RevPAR now ~10% above 2019. Analysts call it a "quasi-monopoly."Barcelona: phasing out all 10,101 tourist apartment licences by 2028. Hotel ADR H1 2025 over €195, up 3.1% YoY.Florence: introduced the CIN code. 20–30% of STR listings disappeared.Europe-wide hotel RevPAR: +4.7% YoY in mid-2025. ADR +2.4%. Occupancy +1.6pp.A peer-reviewed study across 80 European cities found stricter STR rules push hotel overnight stays up an average of 9%.The official line is that regulation protects housing.But Barcelona rents are still up 68% over the past decade. Restricting short-term rentals didn't fix that.What it did do: transfer pricing power back to hotels.In 7 days, the EU regulation lands. Remember who actually wins.Full breakdown in the video 👇

Paris just issued nearly €1M in illegal Airbnb fines.In three months.For context:2024 total: €1.3M 2025 total: €2.4M Q1 2026 alone: ~€1MAnd that's before a €585,000 judgment lands in Q2 against one SCI that converted a former social housing building in the 9th arrondissement into 11 Airbnbs.Third corporate landlord fine in ten weeks.Why now?→ New mayor Emmanuel Grégoire ran on tightening STR rules → A 150-person enforcement brigade was approved 3 days before the €585k ruling → Loi Le Meur doubled the per-unit fine to €100,000 → On 20 May, EU Regulation 2024/1028 turns on the data tapsHere's what operators outside Paris should know:Loi Le Meur is national. Lyon, Bordeaux, Marseille and Nice have the same tools. Paris is just demonstrating how aggressively they can be used.And from 20 May, every platform reports monthly activity data on every listing.Cap breaches surface automatically. Unregistered listings surface automatically. Listings tied to addresses without change-of-use authorisation surface automatically.The targeting work historically the slowest part of enforcement is now done for the brigade before they walk in the door.Regulation was always coming. What's new is the data infrastructure to make it stick.Full breakdown on today's episode of STR Unpacked 👇

TowneBank has sold Towne Vacations to Belcrest Vacations Acquisitions.Cash. No earn-out. 4.3x revenue.Belcrest didn't exist a year ago.It's a newly-formed platform backed by Alpine Investors — the PE firm that owns AirDNA.3,000 vacation rentals. 340 staff. Five regional brands across the US Southeast and Mid-Atlantic.And it's part of a pattern.ViewStay. Avari. Stayterra. Away Day. Monarch.All new. All PE-backed. All quietly rolling up legacy operators.In Europe, Eterniti just raised €50m to consolidate luxury villa management.The Vacasa era is over.The era of disciplined regional roll-ups is here.If you manage properties in Europe, the buyers are coming. The multiples are real.The question is whether you'll be a buyer, a seller, or a spectator.

A bailiff walked into Booking.com's Amsterdam HQ this week.With IT specialists.And started seizing records.Court-ordered.On behalf of 15,000+ European hotels.Here's why.For 20 years, Booking forced hotels to sign price parity clauses.No cheaper rates on your own site.No undercutting anywhere.Commissions: 15, 20, 30 percent.In 2024, the European Court of Justice ruled those clauses illegal.15,000 hotels are now suing for years of inflated commissions.But Booking allegedly cut off access to the old invoices.So the court sent a bailiff.This is bigger than hotels.Every STR operator runs on contracts the platform writes, on terms the platform sets, with data the platform controls.That asymmetry just cracked.12 days before EU 2024/1028 goes live.The platform era is being rewritten.

Marcus Räder is the founder of Hostaway one of the only true unicorns in the short-term rental industry. But the path there wasn't a straight line.I sat down with him at SCALE España for a wide-ranging conversation about his journey: the businesses he built before Hostaway, the lessons that shaped how he runs the company today, where he sees the STR market heading, and the bigger questions he's wrestling with as AI reshapes the software world.A real founder's chat honest, unhurried, and full of the kind of insight you only get from someone who's been through the cycle a few times.Massive thanks to Marcus for the time, and to the team at SCALE España for hosting us.

Last week I was invited out to Scale España by the team at Scale to run live podcasts onsite and what an event to be part of.The team built something special. The right people, the right rooms, the right conversations and a level of energy you only get when an industry knows it's at a turning point.I sat down on the mic with some of the real needle-movers in the Spanish market. Operators navigating regulation that's still being written underneath them, and not waiting for clarity before they move. There's a pragmatism there the rest of Europe could learn from.Some names you'll know. Some you should.At the very end, sharing a beer with Damian to reflect on it all was the perfect close to a brilliant few days.

Two weeks today, EU Regulation 2024/1028 goes live.Every headline will be about Barcelona, Amsterdam, fines, crackdowns.Here's what nobody's saying.While the cameras point south, look north.Norway: revenue up 68% YoY. Listings up 27%.Switzerland: luxury demand up 14%.UK: summer pacing up 15-16% on AirDNA data.Poland up 37%. Czech Republic up 30%. Belgium and Germany up 24%.None of these markets are doing licence phase-outs.None are banning entire-unit lets.Most aren't even in the EU framework landing on the 20th.The story being sold is that STRs in Europe are dying.The data says the opposite.The market is growing. It's just growing in the places that aren't trying to kill it.When 2024/1028 lands, ask yourself one thing.Are you reading the story, or are you reading the data?

Fifteen days before EU Regulation 2024/1028 takes effect, George Mavros, their Head of EU Government Affairs, went public with three demands.Clear implementation timelines from every member state.Harmonised technical standards across all 27 countries.Proportionality guardrails to prevent blanket city bans.This is the same Airbnb that got hit with a 64 million euro fine in Spain four months ago.The same Airbnb that's been litigating against regulators for years.Now they're asking the Commission to step in and enforce the rules properly.Why the shift?Fragmented enforcement is worse for platforms than strict enforcement.One framework they can build for. Twenty-seven different systems they can't.The regulatory narrative has flipped.The platforms aren't fighting the rules anymore.They're fighting the chaos around them.Operators, this matters. The shape of enforcement on 20 May depends on whether the Commission acts now or lets each country improvise.Full breakdown in today's episode.

19 days until EU Regulation 2024/1028 goes live.And the platforms are worried it won't work.MLex reported yesterday that Booking, Airbnb and Expedia are openly concerned about the regulation's effectiveness.The reason? Member states are behind on building the registration infrastructure the whole thing depends on.Spain and Italy: already late. France: scrambling. Poland: implementing law not yet passed.Here's the irony.The platforms spent two years lobbying against this.Now they're worried it'll fail.Because if national portals aren't ready on 20 May, the platforms become the de facto regulators — deciding which listings to block while governments catch up.Liability without clarity.That's the worst possible outcome for them.Three weeks to go. The gap between the law and the infrastructure is the story now.

Cyclades — Mykonos, Santorini, Paros: → RevPAR +41% → Revenue per property +41% → Occupancy +33% → Average nightly rate +3.95%Ionian Islands: → RevPAR +36% → Revenue per property +37% → Occupancy +23% → Average nightly rate +2.82%Read those numbers again.This is not a price-led recovery.After two years of correction in the headline islands, hosts have stopped chasing 2022 rates.The market is filling because the pricing finally makes sense.Demand absorption, not aggressive hikes.The full breakdown — and what it means for operators going into peak season — in today's video.

Valencia just rewrote the playbook on holiday rentals.No night cap.No licence freeze.A hard density ceiling written into planning law.The numbers:→ 2% max holiday rentals per neighbourhood→ 8% max tourist beds per district (hotels included)→ 15% max ground-floor tourist use→ Effective April 2026Why it's a big deal:It's not a tourism rule. It's a planning rule.That makes it harder to challenge.And easier to enforce through land use.The catch?9,000+ unregistered tourist apartments are still operating in Valencia.That's nearly double the city's hotel capacity.A density cap only works if the denominator is real.Madrid did it in August with the RESIDE Plan.Valencia did it this month.Málaga, Seville and Palma are next.The European model is shifting from "how many nights" to "how much of this neighbourhood."

That's how long Poland has to build a national short-term rental registration system before EU Regulation 2024/1028 takes effect on 20 May.The draft act was submitted to the Polish parliament on 29 December.First reading: 17 April.Today: still no clarity on who keeps the register, what verification looks like, or what landlords need to provide.The fines? Up to 50,000 złoty - around 12,000 euros - for failing to register a property that can't legally be registered yet.Compare that to Spain.The Unique Rental Registration Number went live on 1 July last year.By the end of June 2025, over 215,000 applications had been processed.This is the real story of 20 May.It isn't one deadline.It's 27 enforcement curves landing on the same date.🇪🇸 Spain — operational since last summer.🇵🇹 Portugal — STR market down ~30% in months.🇬🇷 Greece — unified digital property register live in 2026.🇵🇱 Poland — still drafting the law.If you operate across borders in Europe, the same regulation is going to feel very different depending on where your properties are.

The conversation covers the accidental entry into the short-term rental industry, the transition from property management to technology, and the growth and expansion of the Scale brand. It explores the challenges and experiences of the guest, from adapting to the 2008 financial crisis to founding a PMS company and organizing industry events. The conversation delves into the impact of cultural differences on event planning and scaling in new markets, highlighting insights from South Africa and Europe. It also explores the regulatory challenges in Spain and Europe, shedding light on the short-term rental industry's challenges and opportunities.TakeawaysAccidental entry into the short-term rental industryTransition from property management to technologyGrowth and expansion of the Scale brand Cultural differences impact event planningChallenges and opportunities in the short-term rental industryChapters00:00 Accidental Entry into Short-Term Rental Industry05:51 Transition from Property Management to Technology15:14 Growth and Expansion of the Scale Brand25:54 Cultural Differences in Event Planning31:26 Regulatory Challenges in Spain and Europe

In 23 days, EU Regulation 2024/1028 takes effect.Every short-term rental in the European Union needs a registration number. Platforms have to verify them, share booking data monthly, and pull listings that don't comply.There are only two major short-term rental events left in Europe before the deadline. Both are in Spain.📍 SCALE España Madrid, 28–29 April📍 VITUR Summit Málaga, 13–14 MaySCALE España is the one that still gives you time to act on what you hear. VITUR is six days out that's a debrief, not a runway.And it's happening in the country already living it:🇪🇸 Spain — Número de Registro Único (Unique Rental Registration Number) mandatory since July 2025. Airbnb fined €64m in December. 65,000 listings pulled.🇫🇷 France — Declaloc portal goes fully live on 20 May. Listings without a registration number get suspended. Fines up to €50,000.🇮🇹 Italy — Codice Identificativo Nazionale (National Identification Code) mandatory since January 2025. Already enforcing.🇩🇪 Germany & Central Europe — still building the digital infrastructure.🇵🇱 Poland — first parliamentary reading was 17 April. Less than a month and the registration system isn't built.This isn't one deadline. It's 27 different enforcement curves landing on the same date.If you're managing units in the European Union and you're still treating 20 May as a "deal with it later" problem Spain is the cautionary tale.I'll be in Madrid both days. Posting what I hear.

On April 15th, a Paris court handed down the largest illegal short-term rental penalty in the city's history.A property company had bought a building in central Paris previously social housing and converted all 11 flats into Airbnbs.No permission. No change-of-use authorisation.The fine: €585,000.That's nearly half of what Paris collected in illegal rental penalties across the entire year of 2024.And it's not an isolated case.↳ Paris issued nearly €1M in illegal STR fines in Q1 2026 alone ↳ Three corporate landlord judgments in ten weeks ↳ A new 150-person enforcement brigade on the streets ↳ Full-year projection: over €4MThe Deputy Mayor for Housing has been explicit — they are targeting professional operators, not individual hosts.Here's the part most operators are missing.Right now, this enforcement is manual. Complaints. Investigations. Tip-offs. Slow.On May 20th, that changes.EU Regulation 2024/1028 forces every booking platform to report every booked night, every month, to national authorities.→ Over the 90-night cap? Flagged automatically. → No registration number? Flagged automatically. → No change-of-use permission? Flagged automatically.Paris has built the enforcement team.The EU is about to hand them the data.If you operate in France and you're not fully compliant by May 20th — you're not flying under the radar anymore.You're in the dataset.

Andy Fenner is stepping down as CEO of the STAA.And his parting message to the sector is sharper than you'd expect.Yesterday at the Short Stay Summit, he used his final opening speech to tell the room:UK short-term rentals are no longer on the margins of tourism policy.They're at the top table.Now the sector needs to stop being defensive and start speaking with confidence.He's right.Because while he's been running the STAA, the industry around him has been growing up fast.Yesterday alone:→ Casago absorbed nearly every former Vacasa market into its franchise network. One of the fastest consolidations the sector has ever seen.→ Key Data launched Dex AI — the first AI-powered data engine built specifically for STR operators.→ PriceLabs expanded beyond dynamic pricing into a full revenue platform.→ Smoobu shared a stat every operator needs to hear: 41.7% of bookings now happen within 7 days of arrival.New tech.Faster consolidation.Shorter booking windows.Fenner's right the sector isn't on the margins anymore.And with 27 days until the EU data-sharing deadline on 20 May, it's time to act like it.

1,300 people just walked into Old Billingsgate.The entire STR industry is at the Short Stay Summit today.Airbnb. Booking. Expedia. Every major PMS. Every major operator.And two days ago quietly Airbnb changed the game on all of them.On April 20th, a new clause went live in their privacy policy.Section 4.2.It gives them the legal right to process your data to "develop and improve our AI."That clause wasn't there before. Now it is.Here's what it means:→ Every booking you take is training data→ Every price you set is training data→ Every guest message is training dataAll of it is now feeding the AI engine Airbnb will launch this summer.The same AI engine that will rank your listings.Decide your visibility.Shape your revenue.Professional managers aren't just competing on the platform anymore.You're building it.And the kicker?The industry is at the Summit today talking about direct bookings, independent brands, taking back control.Meanwhile the biggest shift in host-platform power in a decade happened in a terms update most people scrolled past.If you're at Old Billingsgate today ask Airbnb about Section 4.2.See what they say.

Six weeks before EU data-sharing goes live, Airbnb just launched its most important PR campaign in history.Almost nobody's talking about it.In March, Airbnb published a report reframing short-term rentals as "essential housing infrastructure."Not tourism.Housing.The argument: STRs aren't the problem. They're the solution — for students, medical patients, workers in transition, and families displaced by disaster.The numbers they're pushing:→ 114 million Airbnb guests in Europe (2025) → €53.2 billion contributed to EU GDP → 904,000 jobs supported → Entire-home listings = 0.13% of EU housing stock → Even in Paris: 0.65% of housingThis isn't a report. It's a lobbying document.On 20 May, EU Regulation 2024/1028 goes live. Every STR listing on the continent gets a registration number. Every platform shares booking data with authorities monthly.For the first time, regulators will have hard numbers.And Airbnb is racing to define the narrative before those numbers arrive.Here's the question nobody's asking:If STRs are really 0.13% of EU housing stock…Why did Budapest ban them? Why did Spain fine Airbnb €64 million? Why is Barcelona killing 10,101 tourist licences by 2028? Why are Madrid, Lisbon, Amsterdam, Vienna and Prague all tightening simultaneously?The data's about to answer that.20 May isn't just a compliance deadline.It's when the arguing stops and the evidence starts.

This Wednesday, the one and only Sarah Nan DuPre (Along with Leo Walton) are MC'ing the main stage at the Short Stay Summit.Last month she sat down with me to dig into one of the most uncomfortable conversations in our industry:Are short-term rentals actually causing the housing crisis in Europe or is the data telling a different story?Sarah sees more STR data than almost anyone on the planet (given her job at AirDNA). Her answer surprised me, and I think it'll surprise a lot of the people shouting loudest about this.If you're heading to the Summit on Wednesday, this is a good warm-up. If you're not, it's still 30 minutes well spent.

It capped them by population.Here's the new rule, approved this month:→ Holiday homes can't exceed 2% of housing stock in any neighbourhood→ Total tourist accommodation can't exceed 8% of registered residents per district→ Only 15% of holiday accommodation can sit on ground floorsEvery regulation we've seen until now targets the same lever nights.30 in Amsterdam (dropping to 15 in some neighbourhoods from April).90 in Paris (down from 120 last year).90 in Vienna.The direction of travel has always been the same: tighten the number, add a decimal place of enforcement, repeat.Valencia is targeting density instead.And that's a fundamentally different mechanic.It ties STR supply directly to the population of the neighbourhood itself. As residents leave, capacity shrinks automatically.It builds in its own ratchet.So here's what I'm genuinely curious about:Is this the smarter model?A nights cap is blunt it punishes the compliant operator as much as the absentee investor.A density cap at least tries to measure the actual pressure on a neighbourhood, not the activity of a single listing.But it also raises questions:→ Who gets the 2%? First come, first served? Auction? Legacy operators?→ What happens when an area gentrifies and resident numbers fall do existing licences get clawed back?→ Does it just push activity to the neighbouring district?I can see the logic.I'm not sure I've seen it work yet.What do we think as an industry?Is density-based regulation the model the rest of Europe copies or the one we'll look back on as well-intentioned but unworkable?

In 33 days, Europe flips the switch.On 20 May, EU Regulation 2024/1028 goes live.Every STR platform must share monthly data. With all 27 member states. Listings. Registrations. Nights booked.No more estimates. No more platform-commissioned studies. Real numbers, every month.Here's why that matters:→ Lisbon has already lost ~40% of its STR permits → Barcelona is phasing out STRs by 2028 → Amsterdam is cutting caps to 15 nights in hot zones → Portugal's registered STRs will drop below 90k this spring (from 126k)All of this happened BEFORE authorities had real data.Imagine what happens when they do.When Airbnb picks $93 billion as their headline, that's the number THEY chose.From 20 May, in Europe, they don't get to choose anymore.The platform era of controlling the narrative is ending.The data era begins next month.Full breakdown in the video link in comments.

26,000 registered STRs across the country. By spring 2026 under 90,000.And buried in the detail is a rule that should terrify every STR investor in Southern Europe:Buy a licensed property in Lisbon's historic centre. Sell it. The licence dies.The new buyer gets nothing. No grandfathering. No transfer. Gone.This isn't a blip. It's systematic. Missing insurance, ignored regulations, inactive listings all wiped. 151 municipalities issuing enforcement notices. 45,000 more licences at risk by summer.And it's not just Portugal. Spain, France, Amsterdam, Greece the same enforcement playbook is running across the continent. When EU data-sharing rules go live on 20 May, every city gets a real-time feed of who's listing, where, and whether they're compliant.The passive STR owner is becoming an endangered species.The operators who survive will be the ones running it like a business registered, insured, compliant, and built for scrutiny.

The government promised a mandatory national registration scheme for short-term lets in England by April 2026.No system. No guidance. No enforcement mechanism.But the regulatory direction is clear and it's moving fast:✅ A new C5 planning use class separates short-lets from residential homes✅ The Furnished Holiday Let tax regime was scrapped last year✅ Local authorities can already block STR conversions in their areas✅ When the register lands, every host must display a registration number on every listing or face removal from platformsFor professional, compliant operators this is ultimately good news. It levels the playing field with hotels and clears out the grey market.For the thousands of unregistered hosts across England? The clock is ticking.England has all the regulatory intent. None of the infrastructure. Yet.The question isn't if this register arrives it's when. And whether operators are ready.

Short Stay Summit. 22 April. Old Billingsgate.1,500+ operators, investors, platforms and policymakers. Airbnb, Booking.com, VRBO, Guesty and Hostaway all in the room.The theme is "Tourism Reimagined" and with the EU's mandatory data-sharing regulation live in just 36 days, the conversations this year are going to matter.Sessions covering: → The state of the STR market → Regulation and what comes next → AI, automation and margin → Holiday parks as the next growth playI'll be there on the day.If you're going — let's connect. DM me or find me on the day. Always interested in meeting people building interesting things in this industry.

And the timing is deliberate with the EU's data-sharing regulation kicking in on 20 May, they're making their case now.The headline stat: more than 8 in 10 Europeans have needed flexible housing at some point not for tourism, but for work, study, or medical care.Their pushback on the housing crisis narrative is equally pointed. Regularly-let entire-home listings represent just 0.13% of EU housing stock. Five southern European countries together have 14 million vacant homes 169 times Airbnb's active inventory.Whether you agree with Airbnb's position or not, this report raises a legitimate policy question that's being drowned out by the political noise: who is regulation actually protecting?

Forget the tax changes for a second.Florence, Bologna and Rome are all preparing new local STR regulations expected in the coming weeks.And the template they're following is alarming for operators.Emilia-Romagna's new law doesn't just cap nights or raise taxes. It requires properties used for short-term rental to formally change their urban planning classification.That affects marketability. That affects value. That's not red tape that's a structural barrier to entry.Tuscany started it. Emilia-Romagna followed. Now Italy's major cities are next.The Italian government has challenged both regional laws but the momentum isn't stopping.Layer on top of that: higher flat taxes, VAT obligations from your third property, and EU affordable housing legislation due before year end.Italian STR operators aren't facing one problem. They're facing a patchwork of regional laws, municipal zoning rules, and national fiscal pressure hitting all at once.The question isn't whether Italy is tightening. It's how fast it spreads.

New data published this week shows demand is shifting from short-term rentals to hotels in central Barcelona — as enforcement tightens and supply contracts ahead of the 2028 licence phase-out.Here's the timeline most operators forget:→ 2014: No new STR licences issued in city centre → 2024: City announces full phase-out of all ~10,000 existing licences by 2028 → March 2025: Spain's Constitutional Court upholds the ban → 2025–26: Audits and compliance checks underway → November 2028: All licences expire. No renewals. → 2029:Zero legal STRs in BarcelonaThe legal deadline is 2028.The market moved years ago.Operators still holding licences are seeing less competition. Hotels are picking up displaced demand. And anyone banking on two more years to figure it out is already behind.The lesson isn't just about Barcelona.Regulation doesn't land on day one of enforcement. It lands the moment the market believes it's coming.Amsterdam believed it. Paris believed it. Now the rest of Europe is catching up.

Key lockboxes on every door. Residents describing their building as "a living hell."What they found: a block full of illegal Airbnbs.Fortune's new investigation makes it clear Paris is ground zero for Europe's STR crackdown. And the city isn't bluffing.→ The annual cap is now 90 nights (down from 180) → France's supreme court ruled platforms are legally liable for illegal listings → Two hosts were fined €80k and €150k in February alone → The deputy mayor's target: reclaim 20,000 apartmentsAirbnb is adapting pivoting growth to Brazil and India, and stacking experiences and services onto the platform to protect revenue.But the bigger shift is coming continent-wide.EU Regulation 2024/1028 goes live on 20 May. Platforms will be required to share host data with authorities across all 27 member states. Every city gets Paris's enforcement toolkit.The era of regulatory arbitrage in European STR is ending.