CEO of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association (BHTA), Rudy Grant, believes that the other entities that provide accommodation facilities to tourists, such as Airbnb, should be made to pay taxes in order to level the playing field.
His comments came during a press conference that took place at the BHTA headquarters yesterday morning. He noted that there were a number of other entities providing accommodation that are not registered and expressed that the BHTA believes quite strongly that there needs to be regulation in the accommodation sector in all of the entities providing accommodation for visitors.
“We do believe that in order to be fair and ensure that we all function on that levelled playing field, that we have all of the accommodation entities be regulated and pay their fair share of taxes,” he said.
He lamented that there is a concern in relation to brand “Barbados” and urged that they have to ensure that there are regulations in place to protect it and ensure that the persons who are providing accommodation services are adhering to certain minimum standards.
“Let me also make this point that it is not simply smaller operators; there are some significant luxury operators facilitating accommodations and we think that it is important that in the same manner in which our hotels are regulated and required to meet certain minimum standards, that other entities providing accommodation on a consistent basis are also required to do that,” he said.
Grant went on to point out that the ‘sharing economy’ was a lot broader than the accommodations and noted that persons would have to critically assess it as it impacted how the visitors enjoyed their time on the island. He said that visitors required good value for money and noted that it was up to providers to ensure that it is available to them.