AIRBNB lives on its alternative image. It presents itself as the link between cool-hunting backpackers and hard-pressed but funky homeowners, cutting out the corporate hotel chains to deliver profits and savings to the little guy. However, as Edinburgh is discovering, the reality behind this ideology is dying out.

With demand skyrocketing at glossy, celebrity-packed events such as the Festival and Hogmanay, Airbnb is cornering a growing share of the market. Numbers have increased 70%, with 1.1 million overnight stays now registered in our nation’s capital. Predictably, Airbnb is shifting away from its “entrepreneurial” roots towards organised capitalism. Nearly a third of bookings now come from portfolio-rich landlords with three or more properties listed on the site. They take advantage of a lightly-regulated market to make ludicrous profits at peak tourist season.

The much-maligned traditional hotel chains are annoyed, and, for all my anti-capitalist feelings, I can’t help sympathising with the old corporate behemoths. They have laws to follow, standards to uphold, quality assurances processes, boring stuff like that. Airbnb doesn’t need any of it. The increasingly planned businesses that profit from the system are subject to only cursory regulation.

Meanwhile, Airbnb drives up rent prices, contributing to social cleansing and draining the quality of urban life. In places such as Barcelona, locals worry that city centres are being gutted of real, living citizen life and public space. Even where locals can afford the rents, they can’t afford to be kept up all night by boozy parties of tourists. Edinburgh always had that problem. The danger is that the zone of “real” life might retreat even further under the blanket spread of gentrification and of Airbnb properties “within walking distance of the city centre”.

That’s why I’m glad Edinburgh City Council is considering following Barcelona’s example and getting tough on regulating the unregulated. If it doesn’t, this creeping colonisation will continue.

I spent a year living in Bilbao and got to know Barcelona well, including its politics. I always remember, with fondness and amusement, how the radical left in that city openly, loudly hate tourists. You will often find stickers and posters reading “tourists go home” and “don’t destroy our city”. Barcelona-based anarchists and socialists have even slashed tires on tourist rental bikes and buses.

From a Scottish perspective, this always struck me as astonishing behaviour, a break with all expected manners and decorum, as if someone was shouting the C word at the Queen. We are trained, uncritically, to welcome tourists and everything they bring, to bow and scrape to their whims as if our economies depended on it, so Barcelona’s attitudes were a culture shock.

But Barcelona isn’t that strange, because “tourism-phobia” is a growing phenomenon. It has become a focal point for demonstrations across Spain, in Venice and elsewhere. The United Nations World Tourism Organisation recognises this as being among its number one problems, driven by worries about the quality of urban life (drunken frat parties littering the streets), about sustainability (tourism is terrible for the environment and for old buildings) and about social cleansing of city centres (read: Airbnb).

To clear this up, I don’t hate the tourists who visit Edinburgh. They are just people. I’ve visited many European cities, and yes, I’ve stayed in Airbnbs (even in Barcelona, I’m afraid to say). Nonetheless, I do worry that “tourism” – as distinct from tourists – can become an overwhelming ideology, driving urban policy in a direction that has increasingly little to do with the quality of life for citizens. Ironically, this ends up destroying the distinct features that make cities interesting in the first place.

The economic benefits need to be balanced against this social impact. It’s also worth noting that the economic effects aren’t all beneficial. Soaring rent prices are one of the biggest problems facing low-paid workers, particularly young people, and Airbnb is making this worse.

Moreover, longer term, adding more and more tourism isn’t a sustainable strategy for economic renewal; it doesn’t fit with our growing consciousness about the planet and it shouldn’t be a substitute for creating real jobs.

To clear another thing up, Barcelona hasn’t got rid of Airbnb (check it out: there are thousands of listings available). However, the city authorities did fine the company €600,000 for hosting thousands of unlicensed apartments. Barcelona also employs roving teams of inspectors to check on Airbnb rentals and ensure they meet regulations.

Edinburgh is now considering a new tourism to tax to fund its cash-strapped public sector. Regardless of which party proposes it, surely that’s an idea we can all support?

We don’t need to go to Barcelona’s lengths. Sentiment towards tourists in Scotland remains welcoming, and that’s not a bad thing. But the unregulated rise of Airbnb and other platforms contributes to some extremely ugly processes of social cleansing, and we need tougher laws and resources to solve the underlying problems.

In an era that’s crying out for affordable housing, it makes little sense to turn the houses and flats we have into hotels.