The chief executive of Jet2 has once again hit out at Airbnb, claiming the property rental marketplace is to blame for the overtourism protests across Europe.
Speaking at the operator’s annual conference in Paphos, Cyprus, Steve Heapy said “it is not the case per se” that residents in destinations such as Barcelona and Mallorca are fighting against tourism, as is widely reported by the mainstream media.
Instead, he argued: “These protests we’re seeing are against incompetent and impotent governments that have failed to regulate unlicensed tourism – that’s people staying in Airbnb properties.”
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He added: “We [Jet2holidays] operate licensed tourism, where we send people to hotels and it’s easy to work out how many people there will be [in resort]. The model has worked very well for decades, but since the dawn of Airbnb, it has become more difficult.
“It has caused a massive increase in people going into some destinations and put strain on local communities.”
His comments echoed those he made at the Travel Weekly Sustainability Summit last year.
He dismissed the common defence given by authorities across the continent that it is too difficult to monitor how many properties are being rented out by unlicensed Airbnb hosts.
“They [authorities] say it’s too hard to regulate, but it isn’t. All they need to do is book a property on Airbnb, find out who owns it, go and knock on the door and say, ‘Hi, I’m from the local government. I’d like to see your tourism licence, your health and safety certificate and your tax return.’
“If they can’t give you those three things, fine them 200,000 euros. The number of properties would drop by 95% overnight. That would mean the protests would stop.”
Heapy issued a stark warning to delegates, saying the protests will only become more severe unless governments start taking action against Airbnb.
“These protests are going to get bigger and bigger and they will start to affect our destinations; they will start to put people off travelling,” he said.
He suggested the problem could initially be helped by agents encouraging people to book package holidays.
“What can we do? We can put people in licenced properties through sending them on package holidays,” he added.
“We don’t sell Airbnb; we only sell hotels and apartments. That’s one way we can prevent these protests from happening.”
Travel Weekly has approached Airbnb for comment.