UKHospitality calls on government to introduce tourist accommodation registration scheme

UKHospitality has urged the government to introduce a registration scheme for short-term accommodation providers to help “level the playing field” between hotels and sites such as Airbnb.

The trade body has called for a check-based scheme in its response to the government’s review into short-term lets.

Currently, some sites can unfairly benefit from lack of regulation and reduced tax burdens, while many hospitality businesses face stricter rules, UKHospitality said.

This discrepancy has resulted in Edinburgh imposing tighter restrictions on Airbnbs, which means that all short-term let providers in the city must now secure planning permission.

UKHospitality has argued that a registration scheme would ensure that all short-let accommodation is safe for consumers and would also mitigate the imbalance between shorter and longer-term rentals in tourism hot spots.

Kate Nicholls, chief executive of UKHospitality, said: “UKHospitality recognises and welcomes competition and a varied range of business models in the accommodation sector. However, at present there simply isn’t a level playing field across accommodation providers.

“There is a real lack of transparency around where short-term letting properties are located, how they operate and who operates them. A registration scheme, with the ability to check and enforce compliance of rules and regulations already being followed by other accommodation businesses, would fundamentally address the issue of transparency.

“We also believe that such a scheme will help to eradicate the issues currently facing certain areas of the UK where there is an imbalance in long and short-term accommodation available and will therefore go some way to building a more sustainable tourism industry in the UK.”

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