Hospitality company Airbnb recently announced that its Polk County host community earned a combined $1.5 million in supplemental income while welcoming approximately 8,000 guest arrivals to the region in 2018.

This comes as North Carolinians increasingly embrace the home sharing platform as an opportunity to earn supplemental income and make ends meet, company representatives said. There are now over 14,000 North Carolina residents who share their homes or vacation rentals as Airbnb hosts.

Statewide data indicates that Airbnb and its host community appear to be complementing —rather than competing with — the North Carolina hotel industry. According to the most recent state-commissioned lodging report, North Carolina hotels are experiencing explosive growth in overall occupancy, revenue and prices — in parallel with short-term rental growth. This suggests that Airbnb is opening up the region to a new slice of prospective tourists by catering to travelers less able to afford hotels, those who desire to stay in neighborhoods or cities that lack hotels, and families who prefer to be together under one roof. 

In addition to the new income going into the pockets of North Carolina Airbnb hosts, the state is generating new revenue through a tax agreement with the North Carolina Department of Revenue announced in 2015. The agreement allows Airbnb to collect and remit both the state sales tax as well as local city/county taxes on behalf of hosts and remit the revenue directly to DOR. 

Airbnb also launched Experiences throughout North Carolina in 2018, offering handcrafted activities led by local experts in cities like Charlotte, Asheville and Raleigh. Airbnb Experiences is creating new economic opportunities for North Carolina residents by allowing them to unlock their talents and interests and make money from them, catering to the hundreds of millions of people that use Airbnb’s platform to discover unique and authentic travel experiences, representatives said.

– Submitted article