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This viewpoint paper aims to provide reflections on the role of second homes in the tourism and housing markets together with future lines of research during and after the first outbreak of the COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic. The authors aim to review the epistemological evolution of the term “second homes” because of the pandemic, as well as to unfold possible short-, medium- and long-term effects that could place second homes at the center of tourist activity and of the tourist rental market profitability.

This paper is based on published research studies about the definition of the term “second homes”, as well as media sources related to their role during the current situation of the first outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the early stages of the pandemic, second-home owners migrated from crowded cities to low-density areas, being vectors of transmission of the virus. Now, a potential shift in tourist preferences could position second homes at the center of tourist activity as soon as travel restrictions are reduced. This could intensify existing processes of commodification of housing, empowering accommodation platforms and situating the potential for profiteering around the tourist rental market. Parallely, international interests in migrating from crowded cities to low-density areas could also be triggered.

This viewpoint is presented as the confinement measures associated with the new pandemic are being de-escalated in most of the western countries. It is expected that sharing it will provide insights to researchers and practitioners to better plan their research around secondary housing. Its role should be analysed from different perspectives: in the spread of the virus to low-density areas to anticipate mitigation actions in future outbreaks; in the recovery process of (domestic) tourism; in the processes of commodification and financialization of housing in tourist areas; and their impacts on local residents.

This paper aims to explore the effects of a surge in tourism short-term rentals (STR) on housing prices in municipalities within Portugal’s two largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas.

This study applies the difference-in-differences (DiD) methodology by using a feasible generalized least squares (FGLS) estimator in a seemingly unrelated regression (SUR) equation model.

The results show that the liberalization of STR had a significant impact on housing prices in municipalities where a higher percentage of housing was transferred to tourism. This transfer led to a leftward shift in the housing supply and a consequent increase in housing prices. These price increases are much higher than those found in previous studies on the same subject. The authors also found that municipalities with more STR had low housing elasticities, which indicates that adjustments to the transfer of real estate from housing to tourism were made by increasing house prices, and not by increasing supply quantities.

The study suggests that an unforeseen consequence of allowing property owners to transfer the use of real estate from housing to other services (namely, tourism) was extreme housing price increases due to inelastic housing supply.

This is the first time that the DiD methodology has been applied in real estate markets using FGLS in a SUR equation model and the authors show that it produces more precise estimates than the baseline OLS FE. The authors also find evidence of a supply shock provoked by STR.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how the pandemic affects tenants’ response to their lease obligations. This paper commences with examining the adopted tenant selection criteria during the COVID-19 pandemic. Then, this paper statistically tests if there is a relationship between selection criteria and response on whether the pandemic has effects or not. Then, this paper investigates the specific areas of impact on tenants’ ability to adequately keep to lease agreements in the Nigerian rental market. Finally, this paper proceeds to confirm if there is a relationship between selection criteria and the aspects of tenants’ deficiencies in rental obligations because of COVID-19.

Survey data, backed with interviews, is elicited from practicing estate surveyors and valuers and licensed property managers in Lagos, the largest property market in Nigeria and sub-Sahara Africa. Policy solutions and implications were solicited from personnel at the ministry of housing and senior professionals in the property sector. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics, factor analysis and computer-aided qualitative data analysis, Atlas.ti.

Tenant’s health status is now accorded a priority together with others. Numbers of tenants are challenged with keeping to the prompt-rent-payment rule. Other areas of slight breaches included livestock rearing, subletting, alteration and repair covenants. Except for tenant reputation and tenant family size, there was no significant relationship between tenant’s health status consideration and the COVID-19 effect on tenant non-compliance with lease obligation. Tenants’ non-compliance with tenancy obligations has a connection with the tenants’ affordability, reputation, ability to sign an undertaking and health conditions during the pandemic. This paper recommends rental housing policy review.

It is recommended that the rental policy should be reviewed to give room for rental allowance or palliatives, private rental market regulation, exploration of the national housing fund and, if possible, social housing adoption policy in Nigeria.

This paper draws policymakers’ attention to the need to prepare for the future safety net that caters to citizenry welfare in challenging times.

This paper explores how Airbnb hosts' experiences with and responses to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) health crisis may differ according to their motivations to host and to the type and spatial layout of their Airbnb accommodation. Based on these insights, the paper reflects on the lessons that are learned for the future of short-term rentals.

This is a qualitative multi-method small-scale case study, which relies on in-depth interviews and a focus group discussion carried out with a group of hosts affiliated to the Airbnb Host Community in Aarhus, Denmark. Informed by an interpretivist approach, the study aims to make sense of people's subjective experiences with hosting on the Airbnb platform, and how they have continued and adapted their hospitality practices during the pandemic.

Participants' adaptive practices vary according to their motivations to host and the type of accommodation that they rent out. Although all hosts in this study now implement more intensive cleaning practices, hosts who stay with their guests onsite tend to take stricter preventative measures to avoid contamination and transmission of the virus in their social interactions with guests. On the contrary, hosts who rent out their entire properties and have minimal contact with their guests found themselves less affected by the pandemic's impacts and have had a continued demand for their properties.

The COVID-19 pandemic has unevenly affected Airbnb hosts. Hosts who share their homes with guests require different adaptations to their daily behaviour and cleaning practices at home than hosts who do not stay with their guests and rent out entire properties. However, unlike professional hosts who largely or solely rely on Airbnb for their income, occasional home-sharing hosts tend to be more flexible in coping with cancelled or fewer bookings.

This study provides novel insights into the uneven impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on participants in the platform economies of tourism. It contributes to existing literature on the impacts of the pandemic on Airbnb's operations by showing how hosts' adaptive practices are informed by their subjective living conditions and the type of accommodation they can offer their guests.

The sharing economy has enjoyed rapid growth in recent years, and entered many traditional industries such as accommodation, transportation and lending. Although researchers in information systems and marketing have attempted to examine the impacts of the sharing economy on traditional businesses, they have not yet studied the rental housing market. Thus, this research aims to investigate the impact of the sharing economy (i.e. home-sharing) on traditional businesses (i.e. rental housing market).

The authors assemble rich data from multiple sources about the entry of a leading Chinese home-sharing platform (i.e. Xiaozhu.com) and local housing rental price index. Then, econometric models (i.e. linear panel-level data models) are employed for empirical investigation. Instrumental variables are used to account for potential endogeneity issues. Various robustness checks are adopted to establish the consistency of the findings.

Overall, the estimation results show that the entry of a home-sharing platform will decrease the local housing rental price. Moreover, this impact would be strengthened in a more developed city. Additionally, this impact would be strengthened with higher prices of new houses or second-hand houses.

First, this research is one of the first to study the impact of the sharing economy (i.e. home-sharing) on traditional markets (i.e. housing rentals). Second, it contributes to the relevant literature by documenting that the impact of a platform's entry is not uniform but contingent on city and housing market characteristics. Third, practically, the findings also offer important implications for platform operators and policy makers.

This paper aims to assess the long-run drivers and short-term dynamics of real house prices in Sweden for 1986Q1 to 2016Q4. More specifically, the author examines the extent to which real house prices are determined by affordability, demographics and asset price factors.

The author conducts a cointegration analysis and applies a vector autoregression model to examine the long- and short-run responsiveness of Swedish real house prices to a number of key categories of fundamental variables.

The empirical results indicate that house prices will increase in the long run by 1.04 per cent in response to a 1 per cent increase in household real disposable income, whereas real after-tax mortgage interest and real effective exchange rates show average long-term effects of approximately – 8 and – 0.7 per cent, respectively. In addition, the results show that the growth of real house prices is affected by growth in mortgage credit, real after-tax mortgage interest rates and disposable incomes in the short run, whereas the real effective exchange rate is the most significant determinant of Swedish real house appreciation.

The impact of the two lending restrictions been implemented after the financial crisis – the mortgage cap in October 2010 and the amortization requirement in June 2016 – are ineffective to stabilize the housing market. This suggests that macroprudential measures designed to ease pressure on housing prices and reduce risks to financial stability need to focus on these fundamentals and address the issues of tax deductibility on mortgage rates and the gradual implementation of debt-to-income limits to contain mortgage demand and improve households’ resilience to shocks.

The airline industry has been severely impacted by COVID-19 due to widespread travel restrictions. Its current response is crucial to ensure continued operations after the global pandemic is resolved. One resource the airlines are leveraging is loyalty programs. This study aims to examine the viability of leveraging loyalty programs in times of crisis.

This study employs a case study methodology to examine how one company, American Airlines, has used its loyalty program to survive a pandemic and alleviate the financial costs associated with limited and restricted travel.

American Airlines' AAdvantage loyalty program structure may be used as a benchmark to understand how airlines can anchor their loyalty base to reinvigorate travel interest and use these programs as safeguards in critical instances that may arise in the future.

The case was bound by the fact that the pandemic was still a threat during the time of analysis. The findings of this case study go beyond the airline industry and may inform other hospitality and tourism organizations on the benefits of loyalty programs in times of financial distress.

This is the first known case study examining the strengths and opportunities of the structure of the American Airlines' AAdvantage program as a means for surviving in a time of crisis. Moreover, understanding how to mitigate the long-term effects of crises may help to inform future short-term strategies of airlines and other hospitality and tourism organizations for navigating unexpected shocks to their ecosystem.

The purpose of this study is to gain a deeper understanding on if and how hotel senior managers (HSMs) in four-star chain hotels in London and Stockholm implemented crisis management techniques (CMTs) as a response to the economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Qualitative questionnaires were sent to 30 HSMs in London and Stockholm. From the feedback, this paper assesses, using thematic analysis, differences in CMTs used, past and present, alluding to COVID-19’s economic impacts on hotels.

Results determined that crises broadly economically impacted destinations similarly through loss of travellers and thus revenue. However, with a more intricate and specific assessment, destinations are impacted differently; thus, CMTs must alter. Findings show many CMTs can be implemented to reduce crises’ economic impacts. The literature review and empirical results allude to many previous and current CMTs, although these must be relevant and specific to the crisis, hotel and/or destination.

This paper has theoretical implications for academics on, among other things, theory building. Practically, it supports hotels in developing and determining CMTs to reduce the economic impacts of crises, to be better prepared when another pandemic emerges and contributes to the tourism and hospitality industry’s knowledge of management strategy within crises.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first Swedish study focusing on post-COVID-19 crisis management in hotels in London and Stockholm.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether real estate investment trusts (REITs) have any significant cost-efficiency advantages over real estate operating companies (REOCs).

The data for listed companies were extracted from the Bloomberg terminal. The authors analyzed financial ratios and conducted a non-parametric data envelope analysis (DEA) for 534 firms in the USA, Canada and some EU member states.

The results suggest that REITs were much more cost-efficient than REOCs by all the parameters in the DEA model during the entire three-year period under consideration. Although the debt-to-equity levels were similar, REOCs were more relying on short-term than long-term maturities, which made them more vulnerable against market corrections or shocks. Being larger in asset size did not necessarily guarantee greater economies of scale. Both – the cases of increasing economies of scale and diseconomies – were detected. The time period 2015–2017 showed the general trend of decreasing efficiency.

Very few papers on the topic of REITs have attempted to find out whether a different firm structure displays any differences in efficiency. Because the question of REITs and sustainable growth of the real estate market has become a prominent issue, this research can help EU countries to consider the option of adopting a REIT system. If this system were successfully implemented, the EU member states could benefit from a more sustainable and more rapid growth of their real estate markets.

This study aims to identify the challenges faced by urban destinations in Spain in the current transitional stage towards a new reality of tourism, caused by the outbreak of COVID-19 and the ongoing global changes in the tourism industry.

An extensive literature review and an analysis of current debates were conducted to identify the different factors that have influenced the recent tourism phenomenon and the development of destinations on a global, regional-national and local-urban scale.

Four main challenges are identified, including the new mobility patterns of the population; information and communication technologies and the digitalisation process in urban and tourism management; sustainability, as a factor of the competitiveness, stability and viability of urban destinations; and governance in urban destinations.

The study’s findings provide valuable insights for urban destination managers to make informed decisions and adapt to the new reality of tourism.