Airbnb reports big bookings in Osceola County, all of Florida
On the same day, DeSantis banned state workers from using Airbnb for reimbursable travel
Osceola County residents earned more than twice as much money as Orange County residents last year on the home-sharing platform Airbnb, the San Francisco-based tech company revealed.
The company released yearend data Tuesday that showed 640,000 guest stays in Osceola County earned residents a total of $82.6 million.
That eclipsed the totals in Orange County, which saw $40 million earned through 338,000 stays.
In fact, Osceola’s total was higher than all other counties in Florida except Miami-Dade County, which tallied $204 million over 954,000 stays.
“Floridian homeowners increasingly embrace the home sharing and vacation rental platform as an opportunity to earn supplemental income and make ends meet,” a release said, before noting that 45,000 people in Florida host on the site and on average earn $6,500 a year.
Other counties in the area also saw a surge, with Lake County growing from 15,500 hosts making $1.8 million in 2017 to 49,000 people earning $6.5 million last year. Seminole County jumped from $1.4 million earned by 10,500 hosts to 22,000 people earning $2.7 million.
The news came on the same day that Gov. Ron DeSantis banned state employees from using Airbnb for reimbursable travel.
DeSantis has been considering sanctions against the company because of a policy change in November that excluded Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank from their listings.