Papers by Agustín Cocola-Gant
Cities, 2025
The objective of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of regulatory developments in the sho... more The objective of this paper is to analyze the effectiveness of regulatory developments in the short-term rental (STR) market, using Barcelona as a case study. We examine the evolution of regulation in Barcelona and assess the impact of major policy changes on STR supply metrics. We follow an interdisciplinary research plan to answer the research questions. First, an overview of the main policy changes and enforcement activities is presented. Second, changes in the main characteristics of the Airbnb supply are examined over the period 2015-2023. A counterfactual analysis is used to assess the overall impact of regulation. Finally, the conclusions are verified through fieldwork with stakeholders in the city of Barcelona. The results suggest that enforcement and permanent control are key to reducing the expansion of the market, as the legal instruments introduced to regulate STRs, particularly licensing, are not sufficient on their own. Additionally, a significant change in STR supply occurred following a data sharing agreement between the municipality and Airbnb. Furthermore, the counterfactual analysis suggests that in a laissez-faire scenario, the total number of STR listings on Airbnb would be almost double: 20,000 instead of the measured 10,700. We conclude by suggesting policy recommendations for other cities.
Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie, 2023
The most common approach to student housing has been articulated by studentification literature. ... more The most common approach to student housing has been articulated by studentification literature. Furthermore, authors have highlighted how student demand attracts institutional investors to develop Purpose-Built Student Accommodation (PBSA). In this paper, we complement these approaches with a conceptualization of how digital platforms have restructured the supply of student rooms in houses of multiple occupation. Relying on business and software understandings of platforms, we first explore the case of Uniplaces in Lisbon, a platform that has imitated the Airbnb model and today is present in more than 130 cities in various countries. Second, we depict Uniplaces within a landscape of mid-term rental platforms that cater for different profiles of mobile populations, who stay in destinations for a short-or mid-term period of time. We conclude with a discussion about the potential of this market to further advance processes of transnational gentrification and weaken the position of tenants.
Cities, 2023
The explanation regarding the recent touristification of cities has significantly focused on the ... more The explanation regarding the recent touristification of cities has significantly focused on the ability of platforms such as Airbnb to offer millions of tourist beds in areas that were not planned for tourism use. Exploring Lisbon, we offer instead a political economic explanation where touristification is the result of the active intervention of the neoliberal state. Lisbon moved from a phase of abandonment to be gentrified by tourism in a very short period. To explain this, we examine how the state absorbed the cost of redevelopment, thus ensuring that private capital could extract profits from rehabilitation, and allowed developers to build the most profitable product with no limitations, which to a great extent are short-term rentals, hotels, and luxury housing for transnational users. By examining how the central city has been re-invented to serve the needs of private capital, we develop a dialogue between this general process of gentrification and how it is experienced in Southern Europe as a wave of intense touristification. We contextualize this within the historical political economic process in which the European South has progressively become a space of vacation for transient populations who are presented as the new class to be served.
Geoforum, 2023
Relying on extensive fieldwork, in this paper I give voice to long-term residents in the city cen... more Relying on extensive fieldwork, in this paper I give voice to long-term residents in the city center of Barcelona, Spain, and explore how they feel about the tourism-led transformation of the place in which they live. I found that the alteration of the place causes the breaking down of emotional and material attachments that people have with the area and, in turn, the process leads to feelings of expulsion and mental distress. Therefore, I discuss the concept of place-based displacement within the context of touristification, and suggest that housing market disruptions caused by tourism and short-term rentals are insufficient in understanding why communities resist and oppose the penetration of tourism in their places. Drawing on the conceptualization of displacement as suggested by gentrification scholars and from contributions regarding the psychology of place, the paper argues that, regardless of whether spatial dislocation takes place, touristification disintegrates the places people belong to and rely on for their daily lives, which therefore leads communities to experience disruptions to their mental health as well as feelings of dispossession, anger, and frustration.
Antipode, 2023
Short-term rentals (STRs) emerged as holiday accommodation, disrupting the hospitality industry i... more Short-term rentals (STRs) emerged as holiday accommodation, disrupting the hospitality industry in the decade before COVID-19. Mainstream explanations for their growth revolved around digital tourism platforms like Airbnb as market disruptors and the sharing economy rationale, while critical scholars also explored the capitalization of greater rent gaps in urban central locations. However, these explanations are insufficient to explain the growth of STRs. We supplement them by building bridges between urban political economy and the geographies of financialization through the cases of Lisbon and Porto before the pandemic. The paper focuses on tourism-induced housing investment, taking a closer look at the profile of investors in association with STR property managers in the context of the late-entrepreneurial urban regime. We conclude that tourism development has allowed opportunities for housing financialization through STR professionalization, enhancing the allocation of interest-bearing capital in tourism-oriented real estate.
Forum Sociológico
Resumo A arte, a cultura e a criatividade são, atualmente, vendidas como um símbolo de status e p... more Resumo A arte, a cultura e a criatividade são, atualmente, vendidas como um símbolo de status e passaram a fazer parte de narrativas e práticas hegemónicas relacionadas com processos de regeneração. Neste artigo, examinamos as contradições e as tensões entre a implementação de políticas públicas de regeneração urbana e a emergência de espaços alternativos culturais e artísticos, utilizando como estudo de caso o Largo do Intendente. Utilizando uma perspetiva crítica e métodos cruzados (entrevistas, observação e registo etnográfico), analisámos o papel das artes e da cultura no processo de gentrificação promovido pelas políticas públicas. Num momento de rápidas mudanças, onde os mesmos modelos são usados em diversas cidades por todo o mundo, importa continuar a acompanhar e a perceber o modo como na cidade de Lisboa estes processos se manifestam.
Tourism Management Perspectives, 2021
This paper explores the rise of short-term rental (STR) management companies and reveals the tran... more This paper explores the rise of short-term rental (STR) management companies and reveals the transition from a sharing economy activity to the consolidation of a professional industry hinging on what we call 'corporate hosts'. By relying on interviews with companies operating in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal, we found: first, that a phenomenon of market concentration occurred in which individual hosts have outsourced the management of their properties to corporate hosts; second, that through the use of digital technology and vertical integration, corporate hosts are able to enhance the profitability of large portfolios of STRs; and, third, that corporate hosts imitate practices from the hotel industry, leading to the formation of a hybrid product in which the lines between hotels and STRs have blurred. We argue that corporate hosts constitute a new layer of intermediation that challenges the way we understand the STR industry and the overall functioning of this market.
Population, Space and Place, 2020
The pre-pandemic unbridled growth of tourism has triggered a significant debate regarding the fut... more The pre-pandemic unbridled growth of tourism has triggered a significant debate regarding the future of cities; several authors suggest that neighbourhood change produced by tourism should be conceived as a form of gentrification. Yet research on population shifts-a fundamental dimension of gentrification-in such neighbourhoods is scarce. Our exploration of the Gòtic area in Barcelona, using quantitative and qualitative techniques, reveals a process of population restructuring characterised by a decrease of long-term residents and inhabited dwellings, and the arrival of young and transnational gentrifiers that are increasingly mobile and form a transient population. We then use some insights from the mobilities literature to make sense of these results. In the gentrification of the Gòtic, the attractiveness of the area for visitors and for a wider palette of transnational dwellers feed one another, resulting in an uneven negotiation whereby more wealthy and 'footloose' individuals gain access and control of space and housing over less mobile and more dependent populations.
Alba Sud, 2020
We know that the Covid-19 pandemic has stopped national and international mobility and consequent... more We know that the Covid-19 pandemic has stopped national and international mobility and consequently tourist activity as well. In this new context, it seems that short-term rentals has suddenly disappeared, that there has been a transfer of this type of apartments to the long-term rental market, and that tenants see this as an opportunity to increase the supply of rental housing and thus balance somehow a market that has seen how thousands of homes were lost to Airbnb. The opportunity exists, although I believe that in the current situation most tourist apartments will not return to the residential market. To think that due to a lack of tourist demand property owners and investors will start making long-term contracts is highly unlikely. In this text I try to explain the reasons for this situation, as well as to raise the need for a profound change in the current domination of neoliberal ideology in relation to the housing market. To understand how the shortterm rental market is responding to the pandemic, it is necessary to first analyse the way in which this market has been reorganised in recent years, as well as the role that it plays in the current platform capitalism. I base my observations on the study that we have been doing of the short-term rental market in Portugal with colleagues Jaime Jover, Ana Gago, and Gloria Domínguez within the framework of the SMARTOUR project.
The Overtourism Debate. NIMBY, Nuisance, Commodification, 2020
In the twenty-first century, tourism has grown in cities in an unprecedented way and, importantly... more In the twenty-first century, tourism has grown in cities in an unprecedented way and, importantly, takes place in residential areas that were not planned to be tourist spaces. The sharing of space between residents and tourists is a source of conflict that revolves around competition for resources, facilities and the rights of access to these, resulting in an increased community opposition to urban tourism at an international scale. To understand this opposition, an exploration of the effects that tourism has on cities is needed. This is the principal aim of this chapter. Based both on the discussion of the international literature in the field and on empirical research conducted in the cities of Barcelona, Lisbon and Seville, this chapter provides a framework towards understanding the socio-spatial impacts of urban tourism. We suggest that tourism has an impact on both housing market dynamics and neighbourhood life. First, in these three cities we will show how tourism undermines the right to housing for numerous reasons. Second, the fact that residential neighbourhoods become spaces of entertainment and consumption for visitors leads to a daily pressure that dramatically undermines the quality of life of residents. We suggest that it is the combination of the impacts on both housing and neighbourhoods which makes tourism an increased topic of contention. Based on our framework, in the conclusion we discuss whether the impacts of tourism should be considered a form of gentrification.
Alba Sud, 2020
Sabemos que la pandemia de la Covid-19 ha paralizado la movilidad nacional e internacional y con ... more Sabemos que la pandemia de la Covid-19 ha paralizado la movilidad nacional e internacional y con ello la actividad turística. En este nuevo contexto, pareciera que el negocio de los apartamentos turísticos se haya detenido también, que ha habido un supuesto traspase de este tipo de apartamentos al mercado residencial, y que inquilinos ven una oportunidad para aumentar la oferta de viviendas en alquiler y así equilibrar de alguna forma un mercado que ha visto cómo miles de viviendas pasaban al alquiler turístico. La oportunidad existe, si bien creo que en la coyuntura actual la mayoría de apartamentos turísticos no volverán al mercado residencial. Pensar que por una falta de demanda de turistas propietarios e inversores comenzarán a hacer contratos de larga duración es muy poco probable. En este texto intento explicar los motivos de esta situación, así como plantear la necesidad de un cambio profundo en el actual dominio de la ideología neoliberal en relación con el mercado de la vivienda. Para entender cómo el mercado de apartamentos turísticos está respondiendo a la pandemia, es necesario analizar primero la manera en la que dicho mercado se ha reorganizado en los últimos años, y voy a destacar dos puntos que me parecen clave. Baso mis observaciones en el estudio que hemos venido haciendo de este mercado en Portugal con los colegas Jaime Jover, Ana Gago, y Gloria Domínguez en el marco del proyecto SMARTOUR. El primer aspecto es percibir los beneficios que este mercado ofrece a propietarios e inversores. El éxito de los apartamentos turísticos se explica no solo porque la propiedad puede obtener más rentabilidad alquilando a visitantes que a residentes permanentes, sino también-y en algunos casos especialmente-debido a una serie de ventajas que son inherentes a la flexibilidad propia de este mercado. Para propietarios e inversores, la flexibilidad proporcionada por los apartamentos turísticos significa tener control sobre la vivienda. El mercado turístico permite obtener ganancias de los ingresos por alquileres y, al mismo tiempo, vender la propiedad, usarla, o directamente abandonar el mercado cuando se crea necesario. Otra ventaja de este control sobre el activo es que el mantenimiento de la propiedad es constante ya que es posible comprobar el estado de los apartamentos semanalmente; que el turista paga por adelantado; y que la alta rotación de "arrendatarios" permite especular con el precio constantemente. Dicho de otro modo, propietarios
Urban Studies, 2020
In a context of global scale inequalities and increased middle-class transnational mobility, this... more In a context of global scale inequalities and increased middle-class transnational mobility, this paper explores how the arrival of Western European and North American migrants in Barcelona drives a process of gentrification that coexists and overlaps with the development of tourism in the city. Research has focused increasingly on the role of visitors and Airbnb in driving gentrification. However, our aim is to add another layer to the complexity of neighbourhood change in tourist cities by considering the role of migrants from advanced economies as gentrifiers in these neighbourhoods. We combined socio-demographic analysis with in-depth interviews and, from this, we found that: (i) lifestyle opportunities, rather than work, explain why transnational migrants are attracted to Barcelona, resulting in privileged consumers of housing that then displace long-term residents; (ii) migrants have become spatially concentrated in tourist enclaves and interact predominantly with other transnational mobile populations; (iii) the result is that centrally located neighbourhoods are appropriated by foreigners-both visitors and migrants-who are better positioned in the unequal division of labour, causing locals to feel increasingly excluded from the place. We illustrate that tourism and transnational gentrification spatially coexist and, accordingly, we provide an analysis that integrates both processes to understand how neighbourhood change occurs in areas impacted by tourism. By doing so, the paper offers a fresh reading of how gentrification takes place in a Southern European destination and, furthermore, it provides new insights into the conceptualisation of tourism and lifestyle migration as drivers of gentrification.
Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space, 2019
Through detailed empirical analysis of a central area of Lisbon, the paper explores whether short... more Through detailed empirical analysis of a central area of Lisbon, the paper explores whether short-term rental platforms such as Airbnb channel investment in residential real estate and the way in which the local community is affected by the proliferation of apartments rented to visitors. Between 2015 and 2017 we conducted fine-grained fieldwork in the historical neighborhood of Alfama and identified both the producers and socio-spatial consequences of short-term rentals. Our research did not find evidence of a sharing economy. Rather, it found a process of buy-to-let investment in which different players make profits from rents and displace residents with tourists. The paper develops two main arguments: first, we suggest that Airbnb acts as an instrument that contributes to the financialization of housing. Compared to the traditional rental market, short-term rentals offer a number of benefits that enhance market efficiency for property owners, making them increasingly attractive for both local and global investors. We found that the suppliers of short-term rentals are primarily investors that use housing as an asset to store capital. The main advantage of the short-term rental market for investors is that while they can make profits by renting properties to visitors they can also sell them tenant-free at any moment. Second, Airbnb gives way to a hyper-flexible rental market that for tenants implies increasing insecurity and displacement concerns. We portray Airbnb as an example of buy-to-let gentrification that is experienced by residents as a process of social injustice. 1 We acknowledge financial support from the Portuguese Science and Technology Research Council (FCT) within the scope of the SMARTOUR project (Ref: PTDC/GES-URB/30551/2017). We would like to thank the editor Kathe Newman and the three anonymous reviewers for their constructive feedback. We are grateful to Matthew Hayes for his assistance throughout the writing process and helpful comments. We would like to thank Eduardo Brito-Henriques for his feedback at the beginning of the research. 2
Tourism, simulacra and architectural reconstruction: selling an idealised past. In Gravari-Barbas, M; Graburn, N & Staszak, J (Eds.): Tourism fictions, simulacra and virtualities. Spatialities of tourism in an era of complexity. London: Routledge, 2019
Handbook of Urban Geography, 2019
A habitação em cidades como Lisboa tem estado a satisfazer investimentos especulativos e o desenv... more A habitação em cidades como Lisboa tem estado a satisfazer investimentos especulativos e o desenvolvimento turístico, mas deixa para trás a consagração de um direito social que não pode ser deixado à «regulação» do mercado e à crescente financeirização do sector.
Resisting tourism gentrification: The experience of grassroots movements in Barcelona. Urbanistica Are, Giornale Online di Urbanistica, 2017
#13 maggio_agosto 2017 numero tredici anno cinque UrbanisticaTreiQuaderni#13 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STU... more #13 maggio_agosto 2017 numero tredici anno cinque UrbanisticaTreiQuaderni#13 UNIVERSITÀ DEGLI STUDI ROMA TRE giornale on-line di urbanistica journal of urban design and planning ISSN: 2531-7091 edito da con il supporto di per informazioni
In this paper, I explore the impacts of holiday rentals in the historic centre of Barcelona. The ... more In this paper, I explore the impacts of holiday rentals in the historic centre of Barcelona. The intention is to contribute towards a conceptualisation of this unexplored phenomenon with the aim of better understanding why it represents the new gentrification battlefront in several tourist destinations. I suggest that the rhetoric of the sharing economy conceals the fact that holiday rentals are actually a new business opportunity for investors, tourist companies and individual landlords and, for this reason, long-term residents represent a barrier to capital accumulation. I show that there is an increasing conversion of housing into accommodation for visitors and that such conversion involves different forms of displacement. Importantly, when residents move out, the only buyers tend to be tourist investors. In such a context, I suggest that the growth of vacation flats produces conditions that solely enable the reproduction of further accommodation for visitors, rather than for long-term residential use. I call this process 'collective displacement', that is to say, a substitution of residential life by tourism. Ultimately, throughout this paper I suggest the importance of undertaking critical research relevant to those experiencing urban inequalities. Documenting and producing data about the way in which displacement takes place can be a crucial political tool for those who are fighting for staying put.
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Papers by Agustín Cocola-Gant