Unregulated Airbnb threatens Cebu’s hotel, resorts industry

CEBU CITY— Unregulated Airbnb operations in the country are posing a serious threat to Cebu’s hotels and resorts, which have complained of losing 20 to 30 percent in occupancy and income to the new lodging scheme.

According to Hotel Resort and Restaurant Association of Cebu (HRRAC) President Carlo Anton Suarez, this represented a major setback and has emerged as a national concern for the tourism that should be addressed soonest.

Suarez pointed out that this had actually been raised by HRRAC five year ago, but until now, Airbnb operations in the Philippines remained unregulated.

“Why are they (tourism stakeholders) taking too long to raise this issue to Congress when we have been complaining about this for a long time now,” Bai Hotel General manager Alfred Reyes told the Manila Bulletin Tuesday at a forum on the preparations of Sinulog 2020.

Reyes said that the Department of Tourism (DOT), local government units (LGUs) and other concerned agencies and Congress must put their act together to come up with rules, policies and guidelines to control the operations of Airbnb because this challenges the country’s hospitality industry in terms of occupancy and accommodation, safety and security of tourists, payment of government taxes, others.

Suarez and Reyes agreed that Airbnb was catering to low-cost tourists that the country is widely promoting.

Suarez also called on the DOT and other tourism players to start promoting Cebu to more high-end tourists from countries like Thailand, Austrlia, India and Russia by asking their carriers to open flights to Mactan Cebu International Airport.

“Based on our experience, high-end tourists usually patronize hotels and resorts while the lowbudget tourists go for AirBnBs and other housing units,” Suarez said.