Abstract
The rise in home sharing as tourist accommodations has largely been facilitated by the home sharing platform Airbnb. This trend receives varied receptions from policy makers and the tourism industry. Airbnb chooses to not release data, further contributing to the uncertainty on how to analyze and regulate this new market. South Korea is among a growing number of governments pursuing home sharing regulation.
This paper serves as an overview of Airbnb regulation in South Korea and provides data trends obtained through web scraping all in-country listings at three points, twice in 2016 and once in 2017. The data point to the ineffectuality of a 2016 regulatory crackdown, the saturation of the Seoul market, and the types of listings receiving the most rentals.