Carlos Villaro Lassen

Short-Term Rental has been cut down and some places burned to the grown by lock downs and restrictions on travel, but on the other side of the lock downs short-term rentals will rise as a Phoenix from the ashes and become the preferred and biggest type of accommodation all over the world. All global trends point on short-term rental as the accommodation that can provide safe, local, involving, high quality time, responsible, private, mass capacity and sustainable tourism. Imagine - even right now it seems difficult to understand in the middle of this global lock down - that Italy and all of Europe will more than double the number of tourists in 10 years from now. And imagine the private accommodation as the motor in this development. It is very easy: Short-term rental accommodation is the only way things can double – we do not have enough hotels, hostels to double figures but we have plenty private houses that we can use when people start travelling again in the millions. But - even right now it seems difficult to understand in the middle of an economic crisis - forces will try to restrict short-term rental, so we need to react and step up on the product, on the welcoming of new guests (70% of people never tried a short-term rental), on the bookability, on the service, on the safety and cleaning protocols, on the involvement with society so that our guests don’t clash with the locals but actually support the locals – on all parameters. Carlos Villaro Lassen is the Secretary General of the European Holiday Home Association and with Italy being the top three European destination market he will reveal how he sees the crossroad between business and regulation.