[skewart]

Without AirBnB you would need to convert a house into a hotel in order to use residential real estate to tap into hotel demand. And regulations typically make that hard and expensive. Plus you would need to do some construction work, which also adds to the expense.

So strong hotel demand certainly does push up land value overall over time, but it happens much more slowly and to a lesser extent than with AirBnB.

AirBnB gives investors a way around hotel regulations and construction costs. You can buy an existing house and with very little friction or cost start generating revenue from tourism demand.