The Venice House Observatory began monitoring since last year the lodging offer apart from hotels using the data given by the Veneto Region, since this sector of the touristic market in Venice is, in many situations, a direct competitor of the residents’market. It is anyway a still partial investigation on this subject, surely penalized by a certain underestimation of the phenomenon, particularly in relation with the unofficial offer prices, whose exact knowledge would require specific enquiries.

The accomodation sector apart from hotels is regulated by the single text of the regional law on tourism, that includes three kinds of offer:
 dwelling units for touristic use: classified and unclassified, rented out to tourists with contracts that do not last less than seven days,
 lodging-house keepers: structures with not more than six rooms, located in not more than two furnished apartments in just one building,
 bed & breakfasts: family lodging activities administered by privates that use a part of their house.

In Venice accomodations apart from hotels, composed of a series of accomodations, from bed & breakfasts to lodging-house keepers and the so-called social accomodations, have now reached considerable quantities, and at the end of 2004 they counted over 6.500 beds, of which 6.240 in the historical city centre. Lodgings apart from hotels are many, even though they are often of small dimensions, and the number of beds has jumped up in the last years until it became half of the hotel beds, that in the historical centre are 13.088. This sector of the touristic offer is concentrated almost exclusively in Venice’s historical centre, where we find 90% of the apartments rented to tourists for short periods, a percentage that goes down to 85% if we consider also bed & breakfasts, which are distributed more evenly into the City Council’s different areas. Although it is a seemingly restricted phenomenon, it involves 575 houses, going up to 737 if we consider also bed & breakfasts, which offer just a part of the house, that is still inhabited by its owner. Indeed, the concentration and its grow in the historical centre stress the real and direct competition in the rentals market, between a sector like tourism, which has a high budget level, and the demand for stable rentals, for workers and students.

Measured in terms of impact, this market absorbs, in the whole city council, 2% of rented houses and 5,3% of rented houses just of the private market; percentages that, in the historical centre, go up to respectively 5% and 8,4%. Analyzing in detail the different sections of the offer for accomodations apart from hotels, we see that there is a process of progressive adaptation and maybe even consolidation of a sector that is largely administered by single privates trying to exploit positions of easy profit.

Living units for touristic use, particularly unclassified ones, are growing fast, both as to apartments and as to beds. Their number, counting the two different sections, is equal to 319 units, with around 1600 beds; they are located in the historical centre and in comparison with last year there is an increase by 20%, with 22 new units and 113 new beds. They are mostly concentrated in the area north of the historical centre between San Marco and Castello, followed by Cannaregio. Even lodging-house keepers, located mostly in Cannaregio, are in expansion: in the historical town there are 229 apartments with 2154 beds, in the last year thet grew by 14 units, 258 rooms and 274 beds. The accomodation offer for tourists in structures like bed & breakfasts counts 715 beds in all the city council territory; unlike the previous ones, these structures register a significant presence also in the mainland and in comparison with last year they did not increased, on the contrary they slightly decreased, with the exception of the areas of Cannaregio and the Lido.

In Venice, inside the offer for accomodations apart from hotels, a relevant place is taken by the so-called “social” accomodations, that include several kinds of structures, such as the youth hostel or many religious institutes. In this case, it is important to say that they are structures born and transformed in order to give touristic hospitality or temporary accomodation to students and workers. Contrarily to the process of erosion of the housing heritage produced by houses rented to tourists for short periods, these structures go towards the direction of dividing the offer typologies without introducing competitive markets.

In total, there are 25 structures in the historical centre, 3 at the Lido and 4 in the mainland, and they offer over 2000 beds. In the winter period, this kind of offer drops off because some of these structures are inhabited by students (former Junghans, Artigianelli, Domus Civica, San Servolo etc.).