The tensions over the Colosseum-Airbnb arrangement come as popular European destinations such as Rome struggle to maintain their quality of life while dealing with influxes of tourists. Critics say the growing use of housing as short-term rentals, like Airbnbs, is contributing to housing shortages for locals in some cities.

The Colosseum blowback is a different beast for the company. Lauren Donovan Ginsberg, a professor of classical studies at Duke University, said in an email that the site was where gladiators, condemned prisoners and animals were killed, sometimes “in brutal ways designed for degradation and spectacle.”

“The idea of cosplaying the violence done to the bodies of professional gladiators, usually enslaved or lower class citizens or immigrants, on the site of so much violence as a ‘side benefit’ of your Airbnb stay — a company ALSO directly profiting from the overtouristing of Rome — seems to me to be the wrong kind of engagement with ancient Rome,” Ginsberg wrote. “It is certainly trivializing the life and death of gladiators and many more. Or at least, it isn’t the lesson I hope my students would take away from their study of the Roman arena.”

Archive