MEDIA CONTACT:
Ben Breit, Airbnb Midwest Public Affairs
Phone: (847) 274-5456
Email: benjamin.breit@airbnb.com
Wisconsin Airbnb Hosts Earned $41 Million in 2018 Amid Continued Hotel Growth
MADISON, WI — Airbnb, the world’s leading community driven hospitality company, announced today that its Wisconsin host community earned a combined $41 million in supplemental income while welcoming approximately 344,000 guest arrivals to the state in 2018.
This comes as Wisconsin residents increasingly embrace the home sharing platform as an opportunity to earn supplemental income and make ends meet. There are now over 5,400 Wisconsin hosts who share their homes via Airbnb, typically earning about $5,200 annually in supplemental income.
Yet, statewide data indicates that Airbnb and its host community appear to be complementing — rather than competing with — the Wisconsin hotel industry. The most recent report from the Wisconsin Department of Tourism demonstrates that Wisconsin hotel occupancy rates, revenue and demand have grown steadily even as local hosts welcomed hundreds of thousands of guests. This suggests that Airbnb is opening up the state to a new slice of prospective tourists by catering to travelers less able to afford hotels, those who desire to stay in neighborhoods or cities that lack hotels, and families who prefer to be together under one roof.
In addition to the new income going into the pockets of Wisconsin Airbnb hosts, the state is generating new revenue through a tax agreement with the Wisconsin Department of Revenue announced in 2017 that allows Airbnb to collect and remit the Wisconsin sales tax on behalf of its hosts. Earlier this year, Airbnb announced that it delivered $2.5 million in tax revenue to the state in the first year of that tax agreement, far exceeding initial projections. Airbnb also has tax agreements in effect with the cities of Madison, Green Bay and most recently Racine to collect and remit their respective room taxes.
The home sharing community provides significant value through expanded lodging capacity for Wisconsin communities when hotels sell out during big events. These include Madison during legislative session and major events associated with the university, Milwaukee during major conventions and festivals, Green Bay during home football weekends and the lakefront communities during summer tourism season.
Airbnb also introduced Experiences to Wisconsin in 2018, offering handcrafted activities led by local experts in cities like Madison, Milwaukee and more. Airbnb Experiences is creating new economic opportunities for Wisconsin residents by allowing them to unlock their talents and interests and make money from them, catering to the hundreds of millions of people that use Airbnb’s platform to discover unique and authentic travel experiences. Experiences is expected to expand further in Wisconsin in 2019, and the Experiences currently available can be found here.
What follows is an overview of 2018 guest arrivals and total host income, broken down by the top 25 counties.
|
County |
2018 Total Host Income |
2018 Total Guest Arrivals |
|
Milwaukee |
$7.1 million |
71,000 |
|
Dane |
$5.5 million |
44,000 |
|
Door |
$3.2 million |
21,000 |
|
Walworth |
$2.4 million |
16,000 |
|
Columbia |
$2 million |
18,000 |
|
Brown |
$1.8 million |
14,000 |
|
Winnebago |
$1.4 million |
7,400 |
|
Sheboygan |
$990,000 |
6,300 |
|
Bayfield |
$867,000 |
7,000 |
|
Douglas |
$843,000 |
8,000 |
|
Oneida |
$629,000 |
4,200 |
|
Sawyer |
$626,000 |
4,600 |
|
Kenosha |
$584,000 |
4,800 |
|
Outagamie |
$572,000 |
5,000 |
|
Waukesha |
$560,000 |
3,200 |
|
Vilas |
$555,000 |
3,500 |
|
Racine |
$546,000 |
4,700 |
|
Sauk |
$475,000 |
4,600 |
|
Juneau |
$463,000 |
4,500 |
|
La Crosse |
$431,000 |
5,200 |
|
Marinette |
$420,000 |
3,100 |
|
Barron |
$389,000 |
3,200 |
|
Vernon |
$372,000 |
4,200 |
|
Ozaukee |
$358,000 |
2,900 |
|
Rock |
$357,000 |
2,800 |
About Airbnb
Founded in 2008, Airbnb’s mission is to create a world where people can belong through healthy travel that is local, authentic, diverse, inclusive and sustainable. Airbnb uniquely leverages technology to economically empower millions of people around the world to unlock and monetize their spaces, passions and talents to become hospitality entrepreneurs. Airbnb’s accommodation marketplace provides access to 5+ million unique places to stay in more than 81,000 cities and 191 countries. With Experiences, Airbnb offers unprecedented access to local communities and interests through 15,000 unique, handcrafted activities run by hosts across 1,000+ cities around the world. Airbnb’s people-to-people platform benefits all its stakeholders, including hosts, guests, employees and the communities in which it operates.
