KUCHING: The legitimate hotel industry of Malaysia is shocked with the announcement by Airbnb, claiming to have served over 3.25 million guests in the past 12 months and allegedly generated RM3 billion in direct economic impact last year.
On June 2, Airbnb Southeast Asia, Hong Kong and Taiwan general manager Mike Orgill revealed that there were currently 53,000 Airbnb listings in Malaysia, up from its previous number of 44,000 late last year.
The Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH) chief executive officer Yap Lip Seng said the figure revealed by Airbnb was staggering and worrying.
“In comparison, the Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture (Motac) has a registration database of approximately 250,000 hotel rooms only in the entire country,” he said in a statement yesterday.
It was not revealed how the figure was calculated.
Yap said instead Orgill questioned the registration process mooted by Motac and did not offer to assist or hand over details of hosts listed on its platform which were obviously readily available.
“And neither did Airbnb offer to register itself as a business entity in Malaysia despite boasting that it was the fastest growing country for Airbnb in the region for the second year in a row,” he said.
Yap urged Airbnb or similar platforms to be cooperative with the industry efforts to regulate home-sharing.
In response to the statement by Orgill pertaining to the Tourism Tax (TTx), Yap said he was concerned over the admission that some of the property owners (on Airbnb) collected the tax themselves before submitting it to the authorities.
“Such mechanism does not exist for homes. The process of being registered to collect TTx through the Royal Malaysian Customs Department does not allow individuals to collect the said tax freely.
“It is obvious that Orgill and Airbnb are ignorant of Malaysian laws, with them operating entirely out of any laws of the country,” he stressed.
Yap said the hotel industry currently complied with multiple laws that were in place to ensure the industry, tourists and the country were protected for industry sustainability and growth.
“Lawmakers have to be very careful with Airbnb; on one side, they appear to be willing to comply, on the other, they try every way not to,” he added.
While tax matters were constantly discussed and deliberated openly among industries, he said, “There is a rare occasion when an entity does not have any legal foothold and does not pay taxes in Malaysia, demands fair treatment on taxes and, at the same time, a level playing field for all industry players.
“It has always been MAH’s objective, for a level playing field for everyone, where every stakeholder contributes to the industry, subjected to same terms, laws and taxes.
“Perhaps Airbnb can start by reimbursing the government over the billions of ringgits they claimed to have generated in business over the past few years,” he said.
