FRANCE: Airbnb Gives Paris Hoteliers A Threat

Nowhere in the world has more accommodation available on Airbnb than Paris. Now the home-sharing website that has transformed budget travel to the French capital is giving its super-deluxe hotels a fright too.

"The Paris market is going to get very difficult," said Didier le Calvez, managing director of the Bristol Hotel. Along with bosses of the city's other "palaces", he denounces Airbnb as a menace that enjoys an unfair advantage.

A trawl of the Paris region's 50,000 Airbnb offerings - there were only 7,000 across the whole of France in 2012.

Airbnb offers between 380 and 400 Paris properties at over 500 euros a night. Of those, about 40 charge over 1,000 euros (R13,850).

The Paris luxury sector is already worried about a surge in competition from newly opening hotels. Consultants JLL Hotels & Hospitality reckon that capacity will be 60 percent greater in 2018 than a decade earlier.

A downturn in visits from wealthy Russians and Brazilians as the economies there falter, and fears among US. visitors of rising anti-semitism in France, are also a factor.

17th century penthouse

The Bristol suffered a 20 percent drop in revenue in the first half of this year and an occupancy rate that fell to 61.2 percent from 69.2.

Host owners "Maxime and Fanny" present a flat they say was once the home of film star Brigitte Bardot, and whose "140 metre square terrace offers you a breathtaking 360 degree view of the capital city" - all for 1,200 pounds ($1,860) a night.

American actress Judith Freiha gets rave reviews for her one bedroom apartment on the Ile Saint Louis, an island in the Seine river near the heart of the city whose buildings date mostly from the 17th Century.

Airbnb says it is not in competition with the palaces.

The super-luxury hotels are not so sure.

A recent change in the law, which was previously unclear about sub-letting homes, gave French people the right to do so with their main residence for four months of the year.

Although they should declare any income for tax purposes, they do not face the other tax and social charges that a business such as a hotel has to pay.

"It's a tax attack," said Francois Delahaye, managing director of the Plaza Athenee. Jose Silva, who runs the Four Seasons George V, said: "It's obvious that a large part of our clientele, especially the families, will abandon the palaces."