• University of Amsterdam

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Staging Authenticity on Airbnb

Urban areas around the world are currently seeing a surge in tourists on the hunt for “real urban experiences”: off-the-beatentrack, everyday and mundane urban life, seen as representing something “real” and “authentic” – with New York City, and in particular Brooklyn, providing the most emblematic example of these trends. This taste for urban authenticity has linked up with the simultaneous rise of urban digital platforms, as short-term rental platforms like Airbnb effectively cater to this form of tourism by providing access to residential homes in areas outside of urban centers, adding a sense of being integrated in the everyday urban fabric

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