More than 500,000 visitors to the French capital for Paris 2024 are expected to use Airbnb to find places to stay during their trip, but the American-based online marketplace - a member of The Olympic Partner programme since 2019 - is far from universally popular.

There have already been reports of up to six-fold price increases for rooms on Airbnb during the Games period, and a group of French cities and towns including Olympic football and sailing host Marseille have formed a coalition to protest against its influence.

Paris' Mayor Anne Hidalgo is a particularly high-profile critic of Airbnb, which has been accused of driving an increase in rental costs and evictions to convert properties into short-term listings in popular tourist cities and a lack of security regulations for its rentals.

In 2020, following her re-election, she announced plans to hold a referendum on Airbnb and other platforms’ short-term rental operations in the city, but no such vote has yet taken place.

Chesky claimed that prices on Airbnb for visitors to Paris were subject to the volume of accommodation available.

"We've done surveys that suggest as many as 20 per cent of people in Paris are interested in hosting," he said, as reported by Reuters.

"If they put their homes on Airbnb and there's enough housing, prices will stay within reason.

"If not enough people put their homes on Airbnb and people don't have enough ... hotels and they can't build more hotels, that's going to increase prices."

The chief executive added he believes Paris does not have enough hotel rooms for the estimated 16 million visitors during the Olympics and Paralympics, and Airbnb would provide a cheaper alternative.

"So while hotel prices are going up, I will make sure that Airbnb is more affordable than hotels for the equivalent amount of space when people are travelling for Paris for the Olympics," Chesky said.

"I think we can do that."

However, some opposition remains in Paris, including from the residents collective ParisVSBnB.

Union of Hotel Trades and Industries' hotel branch President Véronique Siegel also bemoaned "in the application file, hotel capacity weighed heavily in favour of Paris, and now we hear that we need Airbnb to accommodate everyone", as reported by L'Équipe.

Next year's Olympics are scheduled for July 26 to August 11, followed by the Paralympics from August 28 to September 8.