Don't Airbnbs bring in taxes?
They do, however, the city would get more tax revenue if visitors stayed in hotels.
In 2016 the city collected $3,964 per room in occupancy taxes from its 56 licensed hotels.
In 2016 the city collected $1,780 per room from the 303 licensed short term rentals.This is 66% less tax revenue.
This highlights one of the problems with short term rentals. They pull guests out of hotels and into less expensive short term rentals. The effect of this is to erode city occupancy tax revenues. But don't short term rentals bring in new customers that wouldn't stay in a hotel? Nope.
In November 2016 Morgan Stanley Research surveyed 5,500 Airbnb users to determine how they were using the service. Only 2% of Airbnb users said they would not make the vacation stay if Airbnb was not available at their destination.
That means that 98% of Airbnb stays would have been hotel stays. People vacation in Santa Cruz because of our weather, our beaches, our arts and culture, and our outdoor activities, not because of Airbnb.