Holiday goers planning a trip to the historic centre of Florence, Italy, may need to look for accommodation a bit further out.
This is because the Italian city, home to popular Renaissance art and architecture, will no longer be allowing tourists to rent short-term lodgings, like Airbnb Inc (NASDAQ:ABNB) listings.
The historic centre, a world heritage site, is extremely popular with tourists for its numerous piazzas and churches, but the local authority is planning to introduce the ban to help maintain affordable housing for full-time residents.
Dario Nardella, the mayor of Florence, has proposed the changes after he felt disappointed with the Italian government’s nationwide approach to protecting popular tourist destinations.
“If we don’t try to take politically disruptive actions, no one makes a move,” he said.
Italian students in Florence, as well as Rome and Milan, have recently been camping out in tents to protest the rise in housing costs.
The news comes just a day after Airbnb launched a lawsuit in New York against a similar ruling that limits the number of people that can list rentals in the city.
The accommodation platform claims that the new law, set to come into effect in July, is a “de facto ban against short-term rentals in New York”.
Airbnb went public in early 2021 and since then its share price has staggered, falling 19%.
However, as travel appears to be recovering in most countries the stock has lifted, now up 32% in the year-to-date at around US$112.