🛤️Travelling with Purpose

Summary:

Fairbnb is a cooperative born in the North of Italy seeking to address a tourist ‘short-term rental’ model that has become increasingly extractive, dominated by big companies that unintentionally hike up costs upon the local community.

Through a series of wise innovations, Fairbnb’s governance model seems a far more enticing offer for tourist, host and wider community.

The Problem(s)

1. The Airbnb model is increasingly extractive

   • Where once Airbnb was a disruptive technology that enabled local residents to lease their house whilst they went on holiday, today's market is increasingly a playground for high profit companies that have no connection to the place. The benefits are internalised (often in the pockets of wealthy investors living elsewhere) and the costs are externalised on the local community. In this tension, local governments – like in Edinburgh – are increasingly attempting to hold Airbnb hosts to account for undermining the housing regulations of the region.

2. The costs on local communities are growing

   • The Airbnb boom has exacerbated housing crises and economic inequality for local residents in many places. As property owners prioritise lucrative short-term rentals over long-term leases, locals face skyrocketing rents and fewer affordable housing options. Barcelona, as a prime example, has experienced rent increases of up to 30%, displacing lower-income residents and eroding the social fabric of the community.

3. The tourist experience is worsening

   • Where once this model was designed to encourage 'live like a local' tourism, the commodification of Airbnb and other platforms has lead to less authentic tourist experiences, with little to none of the local knowledge being communicated to incoming tourists.

All in all, these intertwined dynamics are creating a tourist-driven race-to-the-bottom. But alternatives futures are emerging.

The Scape

Imagine in the not-so-distant future, you're heading to Venice for a week's water-inspired getaway. Ahead of the trip, you're host has sent you a curated list of all the most authentic spots for dinner, live music and fresh bread. She has lived in Venice all her life and so you gladly accept these recommendations.

Once the wealthiest city in Europe, the city's recent history has been less stabile, threatened by the force of climate change and overburdened by a tourist industry that has forced much of the local population out of the city. At its peak, of the 38,000 homes, 1/4 were being rented for tourism.

Despite these hardships, you're travelling there with a sense of hope and contribution.

Why?

The platform you've used to book your apartment, FairBnb, was designed to reshape tourism to better serve the interests of the tourist and the local community.

Like Airbnb, the platform levies a 15% booking commission. Unlike Airbnb, 50% of this levy heads to local community-based projects. Aware of the environmental issues facing Venice, you've chosen to contribute to a cooperative establishing adaptation solutions focused on protecting the city from rising sea levels.

This experience differs from your last trip which funnelled the 50% levy into a community-owned investment – called Localvest – that uses AI to model potential solutions and collate the communities differing interests.

This is another of FairBnb's calling-cards – decentralised decision-making.

The platform establishes a 'node' at each region. This node acts as the spokesperson for the local community, shaping the regulation on hosting requirements and tourist levels to ensure tourism acts as a net-positive stimulus to the community. Working at this level, the platform is able to adapt to different localities and different times. As housing crises and regulation on tourism constantly shift, this decentralised model has made FairBnb far more resilient.

Yet, one of the few 'golden rules' that the platform encourages for each node is the '1 house for 1 resident host'. This prevents larger investors buying up lots of housing across highly-prized tourist destinations and establishing 'rental empires'. Instead, each host can only advertise one place on the platform and has to be a resident, ensuring the incoming wealth is retained by the region.

Referring to their model as 'community-powered tourism', the platform's motto "the host earns the same, the guest pays the same, but the benefits are for the whole community” says it all.

As the Venice-born Co-Founder, Dal Carlo says, the answer to extractive tourism is not ending tourism, it is about "finding a way for us all to do tourism better". With the consumer and employee experience being so superior – the tourist getting privileged local knowledge and the host knowing they are contributing to improving their home – FairBnb's model is scaling fast.

Downstream Value Creation

1. Local Communities regain their agency

   • With each local node determining the right balance of regulation for its context, the local community has far greater agency over the ways in which tourism in their place is handled.

2. Tourism that builds circular economies

   • As the platform continues to syphon 50% of its revenue into community-based projects, new income streams are formed. Furthermore, with each host being a resident, the wealth of their rental remains in the region and builds the local economy.

3. Tourist experiences are more reliably grounded in cultural authenticity

   • With each host a resident of the region, your tourist experience is reliably shaped by the local knowledge and advice that they provide. This ensures a return to more authentic travel experiences.

4. The ease of responsible tourism builds positive feedback loops

   • Aware of the damaging impact tourism often has, the Fairbnb model has removed many of the barriers to responsible travel – be it price or scarcity. Many more are now choosing to travel in more responsible ways.

📣 Call to Action 🔔

Though still small, FairBnb are growing fast across Europe. Whether you’re planning to go on holiday, rent out your apartment or are interested by helping your local community, there are plenty of ways to get involved.

The more people – be it guests, hosts or ambassadors – that Fairbnb can attract, the more impact it can have. Check out how you might best get involved here.

Why not consider it this Xmas?

For Digging Deeper…

🔗FairBnb

• The inspiration for this week’s scape.

🔗The Fairbnb Community

• The Fairbnb community is growing rapidly. Join the link above to stay up-to-date with their news.

🔗Fodor’s tourism ‘no-list’ – 2025

• This article explores the places suffering most at the hands of tourism this coming year, requesting people think twice about visiting these regions. At least in an extractive manner.