The Future of Tourism? It's Serial

VINCENZO CELLA, BOCCONI ALUM AND CEO OF HALLDIS, TRACES THE FUTURE OF TOURIST AND BUSINESS ACCOMMODATIONS


 
Sharing economy: a term that in the tourism industry means companies 2.0 offering online accommodation services. Among them there is Halldis, a company based in Milan which, unlike Airbnb, is not a platform. "We do not put in contact supply and demand, but we take directly over the management of apartments, be they of individual owners, banks or funds, taking care of every single aspect," says the CEO and Bocconi alumnus (BA in Business Administration, Class of 1989), Vincenzo Cella.
 
➜ Thanks to the web, these forms of shared accommodation are increasingly competing with the hotel industry for customers.
We simply meet a market demand that already existed, but that the hotel industry was unable to fulfill. Hotels have not yet realized that it is not actual competition, but supply that adds up: a person who chooses tourist rentals would not stay in a hotel, and wouldn't have chosen that kind of destination if a suitable apartment hadn't been available. This happens in the case of most families, for example. In our case, there is an additional factor: for business customers, the availability of apartments for short-term leases meeting precise quality standards and run by a single manager makes life easier for businesses.
 
➜ But how are you developing the Italian market?
According to Airbnb data, Italy is the third largest market in the world for short-term rentals. But what sets us apart is the potential supply of apartments: in Italy there are about 3.5 million second homes, many of which are unused, which could make it an even bigger market. Growth in recent years has been driven by the decline in home prices because of the crisis and, more recently, by people coming for the Expo in Milan and the Jubilee in Rome.
 
➜ Are there any factors that act as brakes?
For someone like Halldis that directly manages apartments nationwide, the first brake is legislation, which is left to individual regions (with Trentino having two different regulations for Trento and Bolzano..). A single national law on short leases would make things easier and give greater incentives to invest. And also clearer and more targeted taxation, which would make the market more transparent. From this point of view, the so-called Airbnb amendments to the Italian budget law that were rejected in November would have been a step in the right direction.
 
➜ How do you see the future of the industry?
Everything will revolve around serial tourism, i.e. those travelers who don't want to just a live a one-shot experience, but wish to repeat it several times, so to become temporary residents of a place. It's a clientele that exists and that is often misunderstood by the market which tends to focus on the hit and run. These are customers who care about city and residential services and are willing to spend more. This, to me, is an aspect of the sharing economy that has not yet been properly explored.
 

by Andrea Celauro
Translated by Alex Foti