Letter writer: Why not let Asheville residents benefit from tourism boom?

With such a strong and growing tourism industry and a city average hotel room occupancy of 70 percent, the concern and resistance from the hotel and bed-and-breakfast industry about individual residents listing rooms for short-term rental on Airbnb or other similar sites is overstated and unwarranted.

Why not formally allow Asheville and Buncombe County residents to list and offer short-term rentals and collect and submit the same 4 percent occupancy tax required by hotels and BBs? Isn’t there enough to go around and everyone benefit?

Mr. [Daniel] Hall’s article [“No Room at the Inn,” May 13, Xpress] discussed how tourist spending filters throughout the greater community at large. Why not allow individual residents to benefit more from the growing tourist industry?

— David Frechter
Asheville