AIRBNB & ITALIAN VILLAGES: DO SHORT-TERM RENTALS HELP ECONOMY TO GROW?

The spread of digital platforms and at the same the birth of the so-called 'sharing economy' has profoundly impacted the society in which we live. One of the sectors that has been most affected by these developments is certainly tourism, with Airbnb acting as the main character. The purpose of this study is precisely to go into whether, in Italian villages, there is a positive relationship between the entry of Airbnb and the economic growth of the villages themselves. To develop this analysis, a panel dataset containing several information related to 269 Italian villages was used. The influences of Airbnb’s entry on three different variables were analysed, one measuring the online visibility of these rural realities, one measuring the average income of the ordinary entrepreneur per capital in the village, and one measuring the active population of the village. The research techniques used were of two types. Firstly, a descriptive analysis phase aimed at carrying out preliminary analysis by means of which trends of the above-mentioned variables are identified within our sample. Subsequently, regression analysis, both simple and multivariate, were implemented for higher statistical significance. What emerges from the studies is that there is a positive relationship between Airbnb's entry into the villages and the three variables analysed. Greater statistical significance is present in the relationship of Airbnb's entry with both the online visibility of the village and its active population as can be seen from the p-values obtained.