Airbnb hopes for official role in S'pore
Firm says it is optimistic about creating partnership and open to talks with Govt on tax collection
Sign up now: Get ST's newsletters delivered to your inbox
Mr Chris Lehane said: "Given that there have been 1.4 million people in Singapore who used Airbnb in the last year, it doesn't make public policy sense to criminalise home sharing. It would make more sense to come up with a framework for the future economy, and making sure that it will work as well as possible for as many people as possible."
PHOTO: NYTIMES
Home-sharing service Airbnb is open to discussing with the Government ways to collect hotel and tourism taxes from its hosts, ahead of a consultation paper setting out a regulatory framework for short-term home sharing to be released by next month, said a top executive.
Since 2014, Airbnb has remitted over US$300 million ($396 million) in hotel and tourist taxes globally.
