CollingwoodToday welcomes letters to the editor at [email protected] or via the website. Please include your full name, daytime phone number and address (for verification of authorship, not publication). The following letter is in response to the Town of Collingwood working toward allowing legal short-term rentals in principal residence homes only.
In the Sept. 11 article in CollingwoodToday, Matt McNama, an authorized spokesperson for AirBnb, was quoted, when asked about Collingwood’s new rules for short-term rentals coming down the pipe as stating that there could be a tourism spike once Collingwood’s short-term rental licensing rules are in force and effect.
Here is his specific quote. “I think it’s reasonable to say Collingwood could see a spike in bookings when it comes to short-term rentals.” he said.
As someone who has two decades of experience in the professional rental management industry, I am confused by Mr. McNama’s statements.
I am not seeing the connection between Collingwood's legislative initiatives on short-term rental licensing and forecasted “spikes” in tourist visitation?
In fact, the general feeling and opinion within the professional vacation rental management industry is that based on the direction that Town of Collingwood is currently taking with its licensing program, it shall, in reality, have the opposite effect.
The reality is that in Collingwood, where short-term rentals have been legislatively prohibited for many years, the lack of proactive bylaw enforcement has resulted in approximately just under 400 illegal short-term rentals being able start-up operations.
The town is pushing forward with the new short term accommodation licensing program with a long list of requirements, which is generally standard practice, understood and acceptable.
Where it starts to become troublesome is on two points, one being a cap of 200 licences and most importantly the short-term rental application process itself shall have a pre-requisite qualification requirement that the subject property for which the application is being submitted must be the applicant's principal residence.
This last point is going to disqualify many of the existing 400, thereby further restricting the supply.
The simple principles of economics apply here, in that, the business success of short-term accommodations is very much reliant on supply and demand.
When the Town of Collingwood reduces the supply by instituting the principal residence qualification or requirement this in the industry’s expert opinion, shall further reduce the supply. This all results in far fewer short-term rental options in the Collingwood market overall.
Mr. McNama’s assertion is that the licensing program in the Town of Collingwood, once implemented, shall result in a “spike in bookings when it comes to short-term rentals.”
Respectively, those are dots that simply cannot be connected using his theory.
In fact, we foresee the opposite being the case.
The bottom line is that when there are significantly fewer short-term rentals to stay in, within the Town of Collingwood, the net result is simply that this means fewer people come and stay in the Town of Collingwood as supply has been significantly restricted in the face of growing demand, year over year.
As a final point, let’s also not ever forget that fewer overnight vacation stays stemming from fewer short-term rental options on the market, means less municipal accommodation tax revenue for the Town of Collingwood should the legislation ultimately be enacted, therefore less funding for tourism marketing and, not to mention, less tourism spend within the local economy.
Stu Frith
Director of business development for Property Valet
