The European Commission has reached a landmark agreement with four collaborative economy platforms – Airbnb, Booking, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor – on data sharing. This will allow Eurostat to publish data on short-stay accommodation offered via these platforms across the EU.
The agreement, signed between each platform and Eurostat, on behalf of the European Commission, envisages:
- Regular and reliable data from the four platforms: Shared data will include the number of nights booked and the number of guests. Data will be aggregated at the level of municipalities. Platforms agreed to share data on a continuous basis.
- Privacy: The privacy of citizens, including guests and hosts, is protected in line with applicable EU legislation. Data will not allow individual citizens or property owners to be identified.
- Publication of data: The data provided by the platforms will undergo statistical validation and be aggregated by Eurostat. Eurostat will publish data for all Member States as well as many individual regions and cities by combining the information obtained from the platforms. It is expected that the first statistics could be released in the second half of 2020.
The press release of the European Commission is published here.