As we all know, Airbnb has taken the travel industry by storm. Puerto Rico has not been the exception. People are recurring to this investment opportunity as a means to create additional income, transition careers or simply create a different stream of revenue. However, like many other industries, the travel industry suffer mightily as the Pandemic spread throughout the world and travel bans and many other quarantine measures where put in place to try to stop the spread of this new disease.
Many hosts saw their Airbnb booking disappeared overnight and with it their hope for that new revenue stream. However, after the first few weeks, locals starting to see Airbnb’s as a way to escape from the crowded urban centers and feel like they were “vacationing”. As these trend started, Airbnb bookings starting to have a resurgence. In fact, many puertoricans started to see Airbnb as their way to recover lost income due to companies layoffs in an attempt to keep their business afloat.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, thousands of new Airbnb’s have been created in the island, from luxury homes, to beachfront apartments, to glamping sites and everything in between. Flights from Orlando to Puerto Rico started to happen more frequently which only helped Airbnb’s to stay booked as hotels were faced with harsh restrictions as to the maximum amount of rooms they could make available. As all this factors collided to make the perfect recipe, Puerto Rico became the fastest recovering market for Airbnb in the world.
An Economic Impact Study of Airbnb in Puerto Rico, performed by Oxford Economics, revealed that Airbnb had created a total of 1.7 Billion dollars in revenue to Puerto Rico in peripheral spending outside of lodging by Airbnb travelers. They also mentioned that since 2017, when Airbnb entered an agreement with the PR Department of Tourism to collect the 7% Room Tax through the platform, Airbnb has collected and remitted over 50 million dollars in Room Tax. After all the analysis, Oxford Economics determined that the economic activity generated by travelers using Airbnb in Puerto Rico accounts for 23% of the total tourism revenue for the island.
As a note, 92% of Airbnb owners are locals, 53% are managed or owned by female and 19% are owned by people of the third age. Airbnb’s continue to be a great way to invest in Puerto Rico. If you are interested in making your next investment contact Compass Property Group at info@compasspg.com.