Airbnb Plans to Host an Immersive ‘Gladiator’ Experience in the Colosseum, and Politicians in Rome Are Furious

Next spring, travel company Airbnb will welcome 32 lucky people into the Colosseum—the ancient Roman amphitheater in which enslaved combatants once fought to the death—where they’ll don period-appropriate armor, eat a gladiator’s meal and, finally, “determine their fate in battle.” Italian politicians are outraged.

Airbnb announced the details of its planned “gladiator experience” last week, in light of the November 22 release of Ridley Scott’s movie Gladiator II. As CNN’s Barbie Latza Nadeau reports, the company struck a $1.5 million deal with the Colosseum Archaeological Park, which cares for the nearly 2,000-year-old monument. According to a statement, Airbnb will accept requests to book the no-cost experience, then select two groups of eight guests, each of whom will be allowed a plus-one. And on May 7 and 8, 2025, Airbnb will bring them into the Colosseum for immersive tours, food and supervised sparring.

“The news of a gladiatorial show inside the Colosseum leaves us perplexed, to say the least,” says former European Parliament member Massimiliano Smeriglio in a translated Instagram post, per USA Today’s Greta Cross. Smeriglio has asked Airbnb’s CEO and Rome’s Superintendence of Cultural Heritage to cancel the experience. He says, “We cannot turn one of the most important monuments in the world into a theme park.”

Other Roman politicians have reacted similarly. Enzo Foschi, secretary of the local Democratic Party in Rome, says that with this “publicity stunt,” Airbnb “wants to ridicule the Colosseum,” per CNN. “We are not in Disneyland,” he adds. “We are in Rome.”

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A post shared by Massimiliano Smeriglio (@massimilianosmeriglio)

The Colosseum—also called the Flavian Amphitheater, for the emperors who commissioned it—was finished in 80 C.E. The now-ruined amphitheater’s highest walls stand four stories tall, and in its heyday, it held some 50,000 spectators. For hundreds of years, the Colosseum hosted often violent games: animal hunts, mock naval battles and combat between gladiators—captured slaves and criminals forced to fight and die for the entertainment of ancient Romans.

“For what it represents, the Colosseum is a World Heritage Site,” Erica Battaglia, president of Rome’s Culture Commission, says in a statement, per CNN. It is important, she says, “to protect it, but also to make it accessible to all and to prevent it from becoming a place of pranks for a select few.”

Airbnb’s announcement echoes famous lines from Scott’s 2000 film Gladiator, which followed the character Maximus, a Roman general turned slave made to fight in the Colosseum. “This trial will separate the weak from the strong, where only those with true strength and honor will rise above,” writes the travel company. “Suit up and get ready for battle, for what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

In exchange for use of the Colosseum, Airbnb will help fund the archaeological park’s educational program, as travel journalist Lacey Pfalz reports in an opinion column for TravelPulse. “The collaboration aims to combine conservation, education and innovation to bring an ever-broader audience closer to the cultural richness of the amphitheater,” the park’s director, Alfonsina Russo, says in a statement shared by Airbnb. But the costs outweigh the benefits, Pfalz argues, citing the negative impact of overtourism and short-term vacation rentals, like Airbnbs, on Rome’s housing market.

“I’m happy that Airbnb is helping fund part of the Colosseum’s educational programs, but it’s getting this gladiator experience in exchange,” Pfalz tells USA Today. “As this isn’t an experience everyone who visits the Colosseum can experience for themselves, and the monument isn’t in any danger of not having enough visitors, it seems the main entity left to benefit is Airbnb.”

Editors’ note, November 22, 2024: This article has been updated with further comment from Colosseum Archaeological Park director Alfonsina Russo.

Sonja Anderson | READ MORE

Sonja Anderson is a writer and reporter based in New York City.