In the latest Bloomberg index, Miami and Boston took the top two spots in the average daily cost of lodging in private dwellings for the second straight year. Airbnb owners asked for $205 a night and $195 a night, respectively, in the two cities. However, the Middle East has been climbing in the annual index and this year has five destinations among the top 15 priciest global cities: Tel Aviv and Dubai at Nos. 4 and 5, and Jerusalem, Riyadh and Kuwait City also near the top.
Dubai’s expensive short-term rentals, averaging $185 a night in Bloomberg’s index, probably are a function of high hotel rates in the Emirati city, where more than 70 percent of hotel rooms are four-star or above, said Ivana Gazivoda Vucinic of the international real estate firm Chestertons. Dubai’s supply of Airbnb units more than doubled to 3,249 units in the two years ended August 2017, following a relaxing of government regulations, according to Vucinic’s research on Dubai’s short-term rental market.
Dubai has spent billions to pump up its tourism sector and hopes to attract 20 million visitors to the city by 2020, up from 15.8 million visitors last year, according to figures from Dubai’s Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing. Two U.A.E.-sponsored airlines, Emirates and Etihad Airways PJSC, have been among the world’s fastest-growing carriers in recent years. Should Dubai reach the 20 million visitor goal, it will be among the top five most visited cities globally, according to market research firm Euromonitor.
Pricey Airbnb listings in Israel may have more to do with the high cost of housing in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, said Yoav Kerner, a lecturer of statistics at Ben-Gurion University in Israel. Apartments in Tel Aviv typically eat up at least three-quarters of the average person’s gross income, said Kerner, who studied the Airbnb market in Tel Aviv on behalf of a hoteliers group.
