Airbnb As a Bottom-up Placemaking Tool: An Analysis of Tourist Flows in the City of Naples (Italy)

Overtourism poses significant challenges like housing crises, overcrowding, and environmental degradation. To tackle these issues, decentralization strategies aim to redirect tourists from historic centers to less affected areas (Mansilla & Milano, 2022). Simultaneously, Airbnb significantly contributes to overtourism but also acts as an influential placemaking tool (Törnberg, 2022).

This study focuses on Naples, Italy, a city where the process of touristification has been largely shaped at the community level, without significant intervention from local administrations or large corporate actors. As the city begins to show signs of overtourism, our research question is: Can Airbnb, with it's ability to formulate narratives, redirect tourist flows in Naples and make non-touristified neighborhoods more attractive to tourists, potentially triggering a bottom-up model of tourism decentralization?

Using a text mining approach (Bolasco et al, 2004) with R software, the study analyzes descriptions of neighborhoods where Airbnb units are located. These dimensions will be further examined and visualized using Geographic Information Systems (GIS), representing the territorial narratives created by Airbnb hosts and highlighting differences between the center and the periphery.

Preliminary results indicate a clear spatial pattern in Airbnb distribution, concentrated in the historic center. Textual analysis reveals that listings in peripheral areas often highlight local resources, proximity to transport, and use positive language to enhance the area's image. This suggests Airbnb could influence perceptions of peripheral districts, potentially driving a bottom-up decentralization of tourist flows in the near future. These findings confirm that platform-driven narratives might influence tourism's spatial dynamics, potentially carrying broader implications for the sector.