New York City Is Airbnb's Top Fall Destination In The US

NEW YORK CITY — “I recall Central Park in fall,” Wayne Newton once sang lovingly of New York in the autumn. Turns out millions of others are yearning for the same recollection.

New York City is Airbnb’s number one trending destination in the U.S. for fall, the company announced Monday.

Despite images of cabins in bucolic autumn forests, large and mid-sized cities constitute about a third of all Airbnb searches. Other large cities like Chicago, Boston, and Washington, D.C. are the most popular places to stay for 28 nights or longer, and account for 60 percent of long-term searches.

In general, trips lasting three or more days are up 70 percent from 2019 to 2021, largely due to the steady rise in telecommuting.

Airbnb’s most popular fall destinations are:

1. New York
2. Chicago
3. Boston
4. Washington. DC
5. Cincinnati
6. Charlotte
7. Minneapolis
8. The Berkshires
9. Denver
10. Newport, R.I.

With mild temperatures and beautiful foliage, fall has long been considered one of the best seasons to visit New York. The city is poised to enter one of its most beloved seasons with improved tourism numbers after a prolonged pandemic slump that decimated its tourism industry. Since the quarantine requirement for domestic travelers was lifted on April 1, New York City’s hotel demand has risen from 338,367 rooms for the week ending April 3, to 457,568 rooms for the week ending June 19.

The fact that more people want to stay in New York for longer amounts of time is good news for the city’s Airbnb owners. It is currently illegal to rent an entire apartment in a building with three or more units for less than 30 days, but the Mayor’s Office of Special Enforcement often does not find out about illegal rentals unless a neighborhood complains.

In May, City Council member Ben Kallos introduced a bill that aimed to curb these illegal rentals by requiring apartments rented through Airbnb and other home-sharing sites to register first with the city. Listings would get a registration number that would be displayed on the website. The city would be required to maintain a short-term rental database to verify that each unit has been registered.

Kallos said he hoped the proposed bill would increase the stock of permanent housing and reduce competition for the city’s struggling hotel industry.

Unsurprisingly, Airbnb is not on board. Alex Dagg, the northeast policy director for Airbnb, told the Wall Street Journal that the legislation would curb tourism at a time when the city needs it, but Airbnb remains “ready and willing to partner with city and state officials to regulate home-sharing across all five boroughs in a responsible and thoughtful way.”

Airbnb guests contribute billions of dollars to the city’s tourism industry and supported 17,000 jobs in 2019, according to the Journal. Airbnb hosts in the U.S. earned a combined $1.3 billion alone in the summer of 2021, the company said.