Miguel Angel Fong, the president of Jalisco’s Hotel and Motel Association, has hit out at the growth of online hospitality services such as airbnb, which enable individuals to list and rent out their homes and properties for short-term lodging.
“Every day there are more. They have grown more than 300 percent in a year,” Fong said this week, citing “unfair competition.”
Airbnb now has around 600 properties are listed in the Puerto Vallarta and Guadalajara alone. Renters can choose from some 190 in the Lake Chapala area.
The favorable peso-dollar exchange rate has helped fuel this growth, Fong said.
The major complaint of established businesses is that the vast majority of these property owners don’t pay income tax, the three percent state hospitality tax or payroll taxes.
A significant number of the properties for rent on airbnb in this region of western Mexico are owned by foreigners, which makes tax collection more complicated for Mexican authorities. Many foreigners do not have Mexican bank accounts, and some even operate in the name of a Mexican citizen.
Foreigners in both Vallarta and the Lake Chapala area who only use their properties for a few months during the winter, often rent them out for the rest of the year. With airbnb and similar sites, they can manage their rental schedules themselves and not be forced into fixed, longer rental periods, and paying commission to agents.
Although Fong urged tax authorities to take stronger steps to identify the evaders, there appears to be scant motivation for doing so.