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Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Bangkok was one of the most visited tourist destinations. Thus, an alternative tourist accommodation market has expanded rapidly especially on Airbnb platform. The number of properties listed on Airbnb reached 38,249 listings in 2019 with an annual average increase of 34% since 2015. Our previous study (2020) revealed that there was a possibility of rental housing market distortion from Airbnb in inner Bangkok because of the high presence of Airbnb to the number of households that rent the property for their accommodation, based on a city-wide study of Bangkok. This research aims at (i) investigating the conversion tendency of rental housing to Airbnb properties in the tourism-centric districts in inner Bangkok just before the Covid-19 pandemic and (ii) elucidating the socioeconomic factors and mechanisms that lead to conversion of rental housing to Airbnb. The study focuses on apartments and condominiums as they accounted for 83.4% of Airbnb listings by house-type in inner Bangkok. The results suggested that the ratio of Airbnb to rentals in the current market distribution (A-R ratio) indicated apartments had higher transformation tendency to Airbnb than condominiums. This is because (1) apartments are more favorable to conversion to Airbnb than condominiums in terms of the return of investment (ROI) metrics, (2) apartment operators are business entities that have the ability to manage their properties for Airbnb effectively, and (3) the condominium juristic person (CJP) prohibits unit owners to use their units for Airbnb in many complexes. Secondly, conversion to Airbnb is more prevalent in the city center because the area is more convenient for sightseeing and shopping than in the inner suburbs, especially for apartments. On the other hand, there is no uniform relationship between proximity to mass transit stations and the conversion to Airbnb, where distance from a train station does not necessarily indicate a clear distinction between rental housing and Airbnb locations.

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