Over a quarter of those booking holidays in Malta use Airbnb-style services, dealing directly with individuals instead of hotels, official data shows.
According to the European Union’s statistics office, 26 per cent of those who booked accommodation in Malta last year did so via websites or mobile applications from another “private individual”, the second highest rate across Europe. The figure shot up from the previous year’s 20 per cent.
Most of the individuals making the bookings in such a manner, the statistics office noted, used dedicated websites or applications but other sites or apps, including those of social networks, were also used.
Among the EU member states, the country with the highest proportion of individuals arranging accommodation online through another private individual was Luxembourg (44 per cent), followed by Ireland and Malta (both 26 per cent).
In contrast, the proportion was below 10 per cent in seven member states: Cyprus (three per cent), Czechia (five per cent), Latvia (seven per cent), Greece, Romania, Slovenia (all eight per cent) and Bulgaria (nine per cent).
As the popularity of people providing accommodation to tourists has soared in Malta in recent years, with the non-collective accommodation (such as Airbnb) sector booming, hoteliers have warned that such operators were not going through the proper channels.
They also claimed that enforcement in Airbnb-style accommodation was lacking, with those providing such services enjoying an unfair advantage over hoteliers.
'Unlicensed accommodation growing at incredible rate'
The president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, Tony Zahra, said the fresh data did not come as a surprise as the association had “for far too long” been telling the government that private accommodation, most of which was unlicensed, had been growing at “an incredible rate”.
“The MHRA is aware of a large number of properties that are being finished or built right now and are destined for the short-term tourism market. This is creating a number of issues.
“Firstly, most of these are not registered and, therefore, there is no level playing field. Secondly, we are seeing short-term tourist accommodation in what are primarily residential areas if not mostly residential blocks,” Mr Zahra said.
Such tourists, he went on, tended to be “very boisterous and loud” and did not care much about those living in the neighbouring residences.
“The increase in this type of accommodation is also pushing up the price of property and squeezing out the permanent residents from the rental market,” he remarked.
On the impact of the emerging trend, Mr Zahra warned there could be a threat to the viability of the hotel industry if the occupancy levels of the hotels dropped.
“The consequence of a decrease in occupancy could be a lowering of hotel rates which, coupled with lower occupancy, could start hitting the profitability of the industry,” he said.