Airbnb hosts have surpassed the billion dollar mark in the Sunshine State. According to the tech hospitality company, it’s Florida host community earned a combined $1.2 million in short-term rental income last year. In addition, 6.6 million people rented homes in Florida for vacation stays via Airbnb in 2019.
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Tom Martinelli, Florida Policy Director for Airbnb, attributed the strong revenue growth to the record-setting pace of travel and tourism in the state, noting the top weekends for Airbnb guests traveling to Florida included end-of-the-year holidays, Fourth of July and Spring Break.
“Last year demonstrated another strong year of growth for Airbnb in the Sunshine State as more Florida homeowners than ever embraced the incredible economic opportunity that home sharing offers, and guests took advantage of unique and affordable options on the platform,” Martinelli said.
In 2019, Airbnb also reached the $2 billion mark in tourist-related taxes that have been collected and remitted to local governments in the past four years. Miami-Dade was the top county, generating $261 million in combined income and welcoming 1.2 million Airbnb guests. Coming in second was Osceola County with $135.6 million in combined income and 1 million Airbnb guests. Broward and Palm Beach counties generated $116.7 million and $43.4 million, respectively. Both jurisdictions hosted a combined 745,500 Airbnb guests.
Airbnb officials are also expecting a big bump in Miami-Dade and Broward for the weekend of Super Bowl LIV, Jan. 31 to Feb. 2. Hosts have already snagged more than 34,000 bookings for the Big Game — topping the Dec. 5 to 8 weekend of Art Basel when Airbnb had 26,000 bookings.
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