Exploring the paradox of homeliness: A critical analysis of home in short term rental platforms

Short-term rental homes supposedly afford more authentic experiences of places (Bialski, 2017) and arguably speak to a cosmopolitan fantasy of being at home worldwide (German Molz, 2018). What is exchanged through the platform is not only the physical space that makes residential spaces a temporary “home” but also the homely “experiences and atmospheres” (Bialski, 2017, p. 96) that are brought about through everyday home-making practices and interactions between local hosts, neighbourhood residents and other short-term guests (Roelofsen, 2022). The importance of homely experiences and intimate atmospheres corroborates the need to critically analyse short-term rental platforms at the scale of the home. Short-term rental platforms play an essential role in creating imaginaries of home, promoting specific home interior aesthetics, visions, and home-making practices through their digital interfaces. Yet, the impact of short-term rentals inside the home has not been sufficiently explored.
This paper will present initial tentative outcomes of the Leverhulme/British Academy-funded project looking at the digital mediation of homes through short-term rental platforms. This collaborative research project aims to develop a material understanding of short-term rental platforms, highlighting the impact of the aesthetic regimes constructed virtually on how homes are organised and inhabited at the intersection of the real and the virtual. The project uses a combination of visual and interview analysis to show how the platform´s domestic aesthetic regimes shape specific understandings of home and feelings of homeliness and how these affect the organisation and inhabitation of interior spaces. The presentation will utilise mainly interview data from guests from around the world to illustrate how the domestic sphere is brought into being through techno-tourism assemblages. It will show the complex impact of platforms of homes, ranging from the over-exposure of personal and intimate spheres to tourist scrutiny to the growing trend towards homogenised interiors designed to appeal to the tourist market. The project highlights a paradox: while often selling intimacy and homeliness, short-term rentals lead to the depersonalisation of homes.
Bialski, P. (2017). Mobility, media, and the experiences of Airbnb’s aesthetic regime. In M. Freudendal-Pedersen, K. Hartmann-Pedersen & E. Perez-Fjalland (Eds.), Experiencing networked urban mobilities: Practices, flows and methods (pp. 94–98). Routledge
Germann Molz, J. (2018). Discourses of scale in network hospitality: From the Airbnb home to the global imaginary of ‘belong anywhere.’ Hospitality & Society, 8(3), 229–251. https://doi.org/10.1386/hosp.8.3.229_1
Roelofsen, M. (2022). Hospitality, home and life in the platform economics of tourism. Palgrave Macmillan.