Airbnb was founded almost seven years ago in San Francisco. After a slow start, the company has grown to over 1 million listings in 190 countries. One would expect the American cities to be its biggest market but this is not the case.
Top Ten Airbnb Cities by number of listings
In the list of top ten Airbnb cities the US only has two participants: New York and Los Angeles. Europe is by far the biggest contributor to the list, with six entries, and Paris being the proud leader with almost 45,000 listings.
Two cities are from different areas of the world: Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), number four with 17,800 listings, and Sydney completing the list at the tenth spot with 10,000 listings.
(Data provided by Beyond Pricing)
What’s interesting is that none of the top 20 most populated cities is represented in the list of top ten Airbnb cities. Apparently Airbnb hasn’t caught on as much in mega cities such as Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Shanghai.
Top Ten Airbnb Cities by number of listings per 1000 inhabitants
These numbers don’t really tell us where Airbnb is most popular. New York has a lot of listings, but it’s also the largest city by population on the list. To make a fair comparison, I’ve divided the number of Airbnb listings by the population of the city. This gives very different results.
Now eight (!) of the top ten cities are European. Amsterdam, Milan and Lisbon join the list, while London drops out. However, Miami is the suprising leader of the list with over 21 listings per 1000 inhabitants, followed closely by Copenhagen and Paris.
I’ve only used the top fifteen cities to make this comparison, so there may by cities with less than 8,000 listings that have more listings per 1000 inhabitants. San Francisco, for example, would come in on the number seven spot with 5,6 listings per 1000 inhabitants.
Sources:
List of cities proper by population
Largest European cities by population
Am I right in thinking the population of Paris is measured by taking only the areas or arrondissements within the centre? The wider conurbation is not counted as Paris like it is in London and other cities. Would it, too, drop out like London if so measured? Hope not!
Yeah it’s always hard to compare the population of cities with each other as there are many ways to define what is part of the city and what not. The total metropolitan area of Paris has about 10 million inhabitants, if you use that number then Paris would drop down to No.9 in the second list, with 4.3 listings per 1000 inhabitants.
Interesting data. What would be truly useful would be to calculate the ratio of active listings per visit-night in each city to find out about supply and demand. The fact that some cities, like Miami, have a high ratio of residents listing their apartments doesn’t really matter if you don’t know how many nights Airbnb travelers are spending in Miami…
Hey Matt, that would certainly be interesting. I’ll see if I can get hold of such data.
Interesting post. I’m surprised Rome isn’t higher on the list.
most listings in Paris are not in the wider conurbation though… does not make sense to take that population into account… it would be like including new jersey and such for nyc.
These are just raw listing numbers. Whats most interesting is ROI and local regulation and risk factors. If I am an investor looking to grow my Airbnb business I am not interested in the size of the market as much as I am interested in what my bottom line will look like.
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