World Cup projections fall well short for 2 Airbnb hosts
· Toronto Sun
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By most accounts, the World Cup in Toronto was a success on the pitch, but off the pitch it didn’t live up to the hype, according to two Airbnb hosts.
“The city effectively ruined our business,” an Airbnb host told the Toronto Sun. He declined identification, fearing the city would enact reprisals for his comments. “Our July would have been fully booked by now as we saw in the last several years, booked at 400-450 per night.
“We have not been able to command the prices that the city and Airbnb anticipated. Even at our regular $400 range, we had no bookings for the first two weeks of July. Now, we’re lowering prices to $300, begging for bookings.”
Matthew Collins had a one-bedroom apartment room for rent in Mimico, about a 20-minute bike ride from Toronto Stadium, saying “you couldn’t really have a better location for the World Cup than my place.”
Very little interest
In February, Airbnb announced a $1,000 incentive for people in Canada who listed properties on its app and had a guest stay before July 31. Airbnb said that Toronto was among the cities with the highest uptake on the offer.
Collins signed up for the incentive program. At one point in the early spring, he had a posted rate of $1,200 a night for the Canada game, the price eventually landing in between $155 and $175 prior to the game against Bosnia-Herzegovina on June 12.
“Five days out, I had dropped my prices to basically what your typical base rate would be if the World Cup was not here,” Collins said. “I didn’t have a single inquiry about anything related to the World Cup.”
Even the city jumped on board, charging tourists a municipal accommodation tax of 8.5% until July 31, up from its regular 6% rate.
Granted, this is a short sample size, but the reality is contrary to the pre-tournament hype about the money to be made in the rental business for the nearly three weeks that Toronto would host its six games.
Projections falling short
A study prepared for FIFA by Deloitte Canada found hosting the World Cup could contribute $940 million in positive economic output in the Greater Toronto Area, including $520 million to the gross domestic product of the GTA, and average earnings per host projected around $2,000 US per game.
Deloitte also estimated some 146,000 soccer fans would require accommodation for the Toronto games, including 28,000 expected to stay at an Airbnb.
As it turned out, the Deloitte study was nothing but a double red card for these two hosts.
“As for June, we only had one guest for two days who came from Boston to see a FIFA game,” the anonymous host said.
“(Again), I was shocked that I didn’t have a single inquiry,” Collins added.
Collins admitted he was taken in by the pre-tournament hype. He also didn’t like the $390 municipal fee he had to pay the city as a short-term rental.
Somewhere there is a valuable lesson to be gleaned.
“We are going to sell out our hotel rooms, no matter what,” Collins said. “If there is a World Cup here it doesn’t really push the needle. I bought into the hype too much and it was way overblown, and I learned a lesson there.”