It grants the minister a new power, to determine “thresholds with regards to short-term home rental”.
The idea that the government ought to regulate business so that “everyone gets their fair share” is total nonsense. Nobody is entitled to a given number of customers, or a certain profit margin. Nobody is entitled to anything other than what they can convince customers to part with in an open market. If one short-term rental host is better than another, it deserves all the business it can handle and the shitty host next door deserves nothing.
The new regulations will murder any successful short-term rental operators in their cribs. Instead of innovation in hospitality, the government will impose rules, standards and conformity so nobody can complain of “unfair competition”. Hotels and established guest houses argue that upstart competitors should operate under the same regulations that they do already. Regulation must serve a purpose, however. The Department of Tourism is not drowning in complaints from disgruntled Airbnb clients who are unhappy and feel they have nowhere to turn. The customer review systems employed by platforms such as Airbnb actually work much better than regulation at ensuring that guests know what to expect and are treated well.
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