STR Unpacked

Highland Council says a control area will not affect existing short-term lets. Its own report says something more precise than that, and the difference is worth an hour of your time this week. On Monday the 17th, the City of Inverness committee voted to recommend that a control area for Inverness city be progressed, and that rural Inverness-shire be folded into a proposed Highland rural control ar...

Spain's hotels sold no extra rooms this July. They still made 6.6% more money. That was the pattern all week across Europe. INE published July this morning: 44.8m overnight stays, up 0.3% Occupancy 71.1% of bedplaces ADR €156.9, up 6.8% RevPAR €119.3, up 6.6% Residents booked less (down 1.1%), foreign visitors covered it (up 1.1%). Nobody discounted. Same signal AirDNA gave for Europe-wide July: o...

Spain has lost one in eight of its short-term rentals. The rest of Europe just put its prices up. 📉📈 AirDNA's European review for July (published 14 August) is the starkest supply split we've seen this year: 🇪🇸 Spain: active listings 365,000 — down 12.5% YoY . Nights stayed −11.8%. New bookings −14.5%. 🇫🇷 France +3.96% · 🇮🇹 Italy +3.59% · 🇬🇧 UK +3.44% · 🇩🇪 Germany +2.99% Spain is the only major...

A booking platform just told the market what your management business is worth. 🇩🇪 HomeToGo reported H1 2026 this morning. The headline figures are good: ➡️ IFRS revenues €160.1M, up 71.8% YoY (from €93.2M) ➡️ Free cash flow €48.2M, versus minus €5.0M in H1 2025 ➡️ Adjusted EBITDA improved 26.6% YoY, accelerating to +58.6% in Q2 alone ➡️ FY26 guidance reaffirmed: €400M to €410M revenue But the str...

European nightly rates rose 8.2% in July. Occupancy fell. RevPAR still went up 7.7%. 📈 New AirDNA figures reported this week show a rate-led market, not a volume-led one: 📊 ADR €159.20, up 8.2% YoY 🛏️ Occupancy 69.2%, down 0.3pp 🏘️ Supply 4.18M listings, up 1.9% 🌙 Demand nights 61.68M, up just 0.8% ✅ RevPAR grew in 19 of Europe's 20 largest markets Operators are not selling many more nights. T...

Poland missed the EU short-term rental deadline in May. It still has no implementing law. And the bill meant to fix that has split the government. 🇵🇱 On 14 July the Council of Ministers adopted a bill amending the hotel services act. What's in it: 🏨 Hotel services redefined to cover any let of 30 days or less, putting STR inside the hotel regime 📋 A central register of tourist accommodation (CWT...

Two minutes of darkness. €347 million. 🌒 On Wednesday the first total solar eclipse on mainland Europe since 1999 crossed northern Spain — and it's Friday, so let's end the week on the numbers: 🇪🇸 Spain's economy ministry estimated ~446,700 extra visitors and a €347M boost for eclipse week — hotel bookings +17.8% vs last August, airline seats +7.9% ✈️ Amadeus: bookings up 90%+ in Santander, Astur...

England's tourist tax just stopped being a big-city story. 🇬🇧 The Cabinet Office's Rewiring the State paper (31 July) contains one line that changes the map: the government will give all strategic authorities the ability to introduce an Overnight Visitor Levy — not just mayors. And the same paper commits to every area of England having a strategic authority by the end of 2028. Most coverage has co...

Spain goes dark this evening. In A Coruña, totality lasts 76 seconds. 🌑 The demand was never in doubt. The pricing was. SiteMinder compared 10–12 August bookings against the same nights last year: ➡️ Asturias: bookings +76%, rates +85% ➡️ Palma: bookings +75%, rates +24% ➡️ Valencia: bookings +75%, rates +6% Same event. Same week. Same country. Three completely different rate responses. Lighthous...

An 8.6 million euro fine, built out of a 750 euro minimum. On 31 July, France's Constitutional Council said the maths holds. 🇫🇷 The case: the communauté de communes de l'Île d'Oléron v Airbnb, over uncollected tourist tax. ➡️ April 2025: the Poitiers appeal court sets €1,500 per night for 2021 and €1,000 per night for 2022 ➡️ 7,410 nights across the two years ➡️ Total: €8.6m, which Airbnb says is...

UK rates hit a record June peak. Supply hit a record June peak. And occupancy is still the pressure point. 📊 Two UK datasets landed this month. Both worth your time, and they measure different things. Lighthouse, published by VisitBritain/VisitEngland (June 2026): → Supply at a new June peak → ADR at a new June peak, exceeding 2025 and 2024 → Average revenue per property also at a new June peak →...

Three earnings calls. Three raised outlooks. One message: demand is accelerating. 📈 This week the three biggest travel platforms all reported Q2 — and it was a very good week to be in short-term rentals: 🏠 Airbnb (Wed): record $3.6B revenue (+17%), nights booked +10% and accelerating, GBV $27.2B (+16%), full-year outlook raised. UK and France origin nights accelerated — Europe's feeder markets a...

182 days. If you run a holiday let in Wales, that number has probably cost you money. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿 Last Friday the Welsh Government opened a 12-week consultation on how self-catering properties get classified for local tax — the first serious review of the rule since it came in. The current test (since April 2023): 📅 Available to let 252 days a year 🔑 Actually let 182 days a year Miss it and you fal...

Booking Holdings beat expectations last night. The number operators should care about was underneath. 📉 Q2 2026: ➡️ Room nights: 325 million, up 5% ➡️ Revenue: $7.35bn, up 8%, ahead of consensus ➡️ Gross bookings: $51.0bn, up 9% ➡️ Alternative accommodations: up 4% That last one is below the total. Second quarter running. Twelve months ago, same quarter, alternative accommodations grew 10% agains...

Highland Council's Wester Ross, Strathpeffer and Lochalsh committee voted yesterday to recommend joining a new Highland Rural Short Term Let Control Area. The reported figure was a narrow local majority. The full consultation dataset in the officer report tells a wider story. Consultation results: → 608 total responses to the Highland Rural consultation → Among Wester Ross residents: 51% in favour...

Nine days until the sun disappears over Spain — and STRs are the big winner. 🌑 The first total solar eclipse on mainland Europe since 1999 hits on 12 August, and the booking data is remarkable: 📊 86% forecast occupancy inside the path vs 66% outside (AirDNA) 📈 Demand up 123% in Zaragoza, 109% in Logroño, 65% in Burgos 💶 Rates nearly doubling across path markets — Burgos up 289% (PriceLabs) 🏕️...

Everyone's writing about the "coolcation" this week. The data is more specific than the headlines. 🌡️ → Mabrian and Data Appeal: demand rising for southern Finland and Vestland in Norway, and for the northern parts of southern countries. Galicia, Trentino-Alto Adige, Normandy, Alsace → Hotels.com France: Copenhagen searches up 246% since the first May heatwave. Dublin up 151% → Amadeus and UN Tour...

Cities are about to get a legal shield for short-let restrictions. 🇪🇺 Bloomberg reported yesterday that the European Commission is preparing a common EU method for identifying areas under housing stress, plus a process for deciding which restrictions are proportionate. Sources say the purpose is to help councils survive court challenges. The Commission's own position backs the direction: ➡️ The Af...

Spain's 21 per cent VAT on tourist lets was supposed to be approved yesterday. It wasn't. The housing decree was scheduled for Tuesday's cabinet meeting, the last before the summer break. It got pulled. ➡️ The Housing Ministry says September ➡️ Podemos won't back the text because of the Ley del Suelo reform inside it ➡️ Junts and the PNV have separate objections, some of them incompatible with eac...

Your licence is in order. Your registration number is displayed. Your tax is filed. You can still lose the unit. Three European jurisdictions have quietly moved the decision about your short let out of the town hall and into your building: → 🇫🇷 France: the Le Meur law lets a co-owners' meeting ban short lets by qualified majority instead of unanimity. In March the Conseil constitutionnel upheld it...

The UK government has a new data matching partner. It's Airbnb. 🇬🇧 Most coverage read the Cabinet Office announcement as a crackdown on social housing subletting. It is. But the privacy notices tell a bigger story: → 470 potential fraud cases already flagged across London boroughs, Edinburgh, Birmingham and Anglesey → Over 450,000 properties in scope → An estimated 5,800 social homes suspected of...

The King opened the Commonwealth Games from a Tardis last night. Glasgow's operators opened their calendars months ago. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 The next ten days: ➡️ 74 nations, 3,000+ athletes, 215 golds between now and 2 August ➡️ No athletes' village: teams fill the hotels, guests flow into short lets ➡️ The data (Monday's episode): supply +15%, occupancy +9 points, rates +73%. Booked before the ceremony, not...

Tomorrow, the UK gets its first statutory tourist tax. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 Edinburgh's visitor levy goes live Friday 24 July: ➡️ 5% on the accommodation cost, charged before VAT ➡️ First 5 nights only, year-round, whole council area ➡️ Applies to short lets, self-catering and aparthotels, not just hotels ➡️ Under the VAT threshold? Still liable. UK guests? They pay too. Operators are the collectors. You char...

An Athens court just shut down an Airbnb. The complaint didn't come from the city. It came from downstairs. ⚖️ Decision 2937/2026, Athens Court of First Instance. Greek media are calling it the first ruling of its kind: ➡️ The building manager of a central Athens block filed an injunction against an owner running his flat as a short let ➡️ The court banned the letting because the building's own re...

Greece has started knocking. Well, emailing. 🇬🇷 The first inspections of short term rentals under Greece's new operating standards are underway. Here's how it works: ➡️ 1,500 properties selected by the tax authority for the first round ➡️ Owners get electronic notice, with at least 10 days to submit their full compliance file ➡️ The file: planning docs, liability insurance, electrical certificate,...