Rome - Airbnb announced its figures during a hearing on the adjustment of accounts, which took place before the Budget Committees of the Italian Chamber of Deputies and Senate. "Italy has become Airbnb's third market with more than 300,000 announcements on platform. In 2015, the overall earnings of the people who rented their homes with Airbnb amounted to 395 million euros. In the past 12 months, Airbnb brought to Italy 5.856 million tourists, accounting for approx 3.7 nights per stay, which is quite a high average."
Alessandro Tommasi, public policy manager of Airbnb Italia, emphasised that in 2015 "Airbnb had an economic impact on the Italian GDP that was estimated to be around 3.4 billion euros. The average yearly revenue of an Airbnb host is about 2,300 euros. Given 100 euros as the nightly fare, independently defined by the owner, 97 remains in the territory as revenue for the host, which is a great opportunity for the middle class." These figures are "significantly lower than some of the estimates provided to the committees that are the result of the assessment on the extra-hotel accommodation. Such a discrepancy suggests that there is a large market share (approx 70 percent) which is not on online portals nor can it be tracked down," added Mr Tommasi.
The manager highlighted that "in approximately 250 jurisdictions in the world, Airbnb collects and automatically pays the visitors' tax on behalf of its hosts. In 2016, for instance, in France we collected and paid 7.3 million euros. We hope this will become a blueprint for Italian lawmakers to hand over taxes to the Agenzia delle Entrate [Revenue Authority] as stipulated in agreements on platforms regarding technical procedures to ensure enforcement of national regulations and compliance with European norms. Considering that on the platform there are different types of accommodation options such as B&Bs, holiday homes, vacation rentals, professionals and non-professionals alike, we promote the enforcement of the measures to the entire sector, in order to simplify the levying of the withholding tax," explained Mr Tommasi.
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