This researcher wrote his thesis on Airbnb in Bordeaux

PRofessor of history-geography and doctor of tourism geography, Victor Piganiol defended in 2024 a thesis on Airbnb in Bordeaux, under the direction of Isabelle Sacareau of Bordeaux Montaigne University.

What was the goal of your thesis?

I wanted to show what Airbnb upset tourism and the tourist. Thanks to this rental platform, it is possible to accommodate anywhere in the city, in places off the beaten track. We talk a lot about overflowing, mismanagement of tourist flows. Airbnb made it possible to burst the flows a little and especially the tourist to see something else, to live “in the manner of”.

Very quickly, Airbnb was an important success in Bordeaux…

The success was immediate in Bordeaux and its metropolis. It started from 2016, with the Euro football. Then a peak of 12,000 dwellings was reached around 2018. This means that 12,000 dwellings were registered on the platform, even if not all were available at the same time. This boom is linked to a concomitance of factors: the arrival of the Paris-Bordeaux LGV, the affirmation of Bordeaux as a tourist destination with the water mirror, the city of wine, etc. Many of Bordeaux had inherited and expensive goods to maintain. They found that this system was simpler than long -term rental. They started renting them on Airbnb. In recent months, in the Bordeaux metropolis, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 announcements, depending on the season.

The platform is often accused of competing with long -term rental, depriving the inhabitants of housing. What about?

This is not the subject of my thesis, but I evoke this phenomenon. It is proven and documented by journalists and researchers, even if there is no economic or sociological study on this eviction of Bordeaux inhabitants for the moment for the benefit of temporary tourists. In Bordeaux, political power quickly realized that it was important to supervise the rental on platforms. Bordeaux was one of the first cities in France, after Paris, to carry measures to supervise the rental via the platforms. In 2017, it notably set up a compulsory recording, and a compensation system: to rent a 70 m² housing, you have to put another equivalent accommodation on the market. This clearly aimed at the multiple controllers. The main residence is exempt, but the rental is limited to one hundred and twenty days per year [début juillet, Bordeaux a récemment fait passer cette limite à quatre-vingt-dix jours. NDLR].

What have you been able to observe in the field on the side of the hosts?

Airbnb uses have diversified, revealing other uses and other users than for simple tourism. Hosts have specialized in order to target specific audiences. Like this host -based host. She realized that she did not praise her dependence on tourists but rather to parents and students who came to find accommodation not far from the campus. She therefore changed her ad by highlighting what interested them: the coffee machine, private access, etc.

You have also questioned the areas where Airbnb is not present …

Yes. This is for example the case of areas considered to be “under-infvestures” by Airbnb, in particular the Grand-Perc, Bacalan or Belcier. I questioned the inhabitants of these places, who told me that no one was going to come here because they have a very touristy vision. I was able to prove them the opposite, by highlighting these other uses.

We also see that prices have changed upwards. For what ?

It is linked to this professionalization. In some districts, there has also been a catch -up effect. The Airbnb algorithm, the operation of which remains very vague, offers prices based on shots. For example, for accommodation behind the station, the algorithm will put a price range which will be lower. As part of my thesis, I was able to create a false ad. I let myself be guided, without questioning the price proposed by the platform. It is estimated that between eight and nine out of ten have the same behavior, when they publish an announcement for the first time.

You have also plowed the land to count the key boxes in the center of Bordeaux…

Key boxes are the symbol of the dehumanization of the housing offer, which is far from the initial promise to meet people from here and share their experience of the city. During my counting of key boxes, I could see that they were very present in a southern gang of the city center, between the Porte de Bourgogne, the Cailhau Porte and the Saint-André cathedral. This does not necessarily mean that there are fewer housing in the central and north zone, but perhaps the owners rely more on concierge systems.

Access to data far from being easy

To carry out his thesis, Victor Piganiol relied on data, including location of the housing rented. But having access to it was not a long, quiet river. “At the start of the thesis, in 2017, I had almost no data,” said the researcher. Airbnb did not provide. Opposition municipal councilor Matthieu Rouveyre, who was very active on this subject, even paid a person in his pocket for ” scraper ” [aspirer, NDLR] data. He had set up an airbnb observatory in Bordeaux. Then, I was notably helped by Vincent Aulnay, an activist who had the skills to recover data. Between 2017 and 2019, Airbnb launched the Dataville by Airbnb initiative, providing information. “But it was just a simulacrum for opening the data,” says Victor Piganiol. They only provided figures and not usable geolocalized data. Airbnb now sells its data in Airdna, responsible for marketing it. Except that the purchase of this data is too expensive. Finally, the vast majority of data were not directly communicated to me by Airbnb. The company did not respond to my requests. »»