Last year was a big money maker for Airbnb hosts in Harris County.
The Harris County home-sharing community earned big bucks in supplemental income for the five biggest guest arrival weekends in 2019 across the region.
Those peak times include the MLB series, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Veteran's Day and Christmas.
Airbnb's Sam Randall said hosts earned a good chunk of change by sharing their homes.
"Almost $20 million last year combined. We put out this trend data to help educate others who might be considering hosting and wondering which time of year is best to host," said Randall.
He said for the first time, they looked at the five biggest travel weekends in the Houston area.
"Airbnb hosts welcomed 50,000 people over Christmas, the Fourth of July, Memorial Day, Veterans Day and an MLB series," said Randall.
The home sharing community provides significant value through expanded lodging capacity for the Houston-area community when hotels sell out during big events, in addition to supplying valuable tax revenue to the City. Last year, Airbnb and Houston announced an agreement authorizing Airbnb to collect the city’s hotel occupancy tax starting July 1st, which by law is dedicated towards supporting local tourism marketing and the Houston arts community. Airbnb also collects and remits occupancy taxes on behalf of the State, and in its second year of collection delivered over $24 million in tax revenue on behalf of its Texas hosts, up from $15.3 million the previous year.
In addition, in 2019, Airbnb reached a landmark cumulative $2 billion in tourist-related taxes that have been collected and remitted to local governments on behalf of our global host community over the past four years.