Ghent hotels call for limits on renting out rooms to tourists via Airbnb
Hoteliers in the East Flemish city of Ghent have called for limitations to be placed on the number of days people in the city can rent out rooms to tourists via Airbnb. The hoteliers suggest a cap of 30 days/annum. They intend to take their proposals to the city authorities.
Ghent hoteliers believe that the Airbnb app is unfair competition. Anyone can use the app to let rooms in their house or flat to tourists. Often these are private citizens that unlike the hoteliers don’t have to pay taxes or levies to the city authorities for having let out rooms to guests.
Rudy De Wit of the hoteliers association Gent Hotels told Radio 2 East Flanders that “This is unfair competition. We want a limit of 30 day/annum to be placed on private individuals renting out rooms”.
The Ghent hoteliers quote the example of Amsterdam where such a limit has already been in place for some time. “We don’t have currently have an issue. However, Airbnb is growing and the prices are more expensive than they were at the start. We need to look to the future and then it would be good if limitations were placed on the number of days that rooms can be let out”.