Five minutes. This is the time it took to Duty to post his ad on the Airbnb short-term rental platform using a made-up registration number from the Corporation de l’industrie touristique du Québec (CITQ).
Last week, Airbnb announced that all illegal short-term rental listings on its platform would be removed this Tuesday. In order to make their offers on this platform legitimate, hosts had to make sure to obtain a registration number from the CITQ which certifies that their accommodation meets Quebec’s criteria for tourist accommodation.
Gold, The duty created an offer on this platform with just a few clicks on Wednesday by entering a false CITQ registration number. The next day, two reservation requests were made for this fictitious accommodation from tourists wishing to stay there for a few nights in April and July.
A common tactic
Many hosts have used the same tactic to continue to operate on the platform, or to create new ads on it.
Thus, in just over an hour of research, The duty found about fifteen listings of accommodation for rent on the Airbnb platform in different areas of Montreal where the registered registration number is fictitious. These entire dwellings are found in particular in the city center as well as in the boroughs of Plateau-Mont-Royal, Mercier–Hochelaga-Maisonneuve and Villeray–Saint-Michel–Parc-Extension.
“We find that deplorable. It will be necessary with the tightening of the law [annoncé par la ministre du Tourisme, Caroline Proulx]. We will have to make sure that there is a direct link with the CITQ registration numbers,” reacted to the Duty the President and CEO of the Association Hôtellerie Québec, Véronyque Tremblay. She was referring to the commitment made by the Legault government earlier this month to pass a bill aimed at tackling illegal rentals on Airbnb-type platforms.
“We want people to act legally”, register and obtain the agreement of the municipalities where they operate, insists Mme Tremblay, who stresses the importance of having “healthy competition” between traditional hotels and short-term rental accommodation online. “If Airbnb accepts false numbers, we are no further ahead. »
Mme Tremblay also insists on the importance “that all platforms act in the same direction and that they are accountable. »
Real numbers reused
In Montreal, a landlord entered a registration number for a dwelling located in Mont-Tremblant, in the Laurentians, for an ad for an apartment located in the borough of Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame- of-Grace.
In this context, Véronyque Tremblay emphasizes the importance of Revenu Québec having more inspectors to ensure compliance with the Act respecting tourist accommodation in the province. “It takes inspectors, it takes people who have the time and the mandate to go on site and do checks,” also opines the president and CEO of the Hotel Association of Greater Montreal, Jean-Sébastien Boudreault.
“It’s people’s safety that is at stake,” adds Mr. Boudreault, two weeks after a building in Old Montreal where accommodation was rented illegally on Airbnb-type platforms was engulfed in flames.
Joined by The dutyAirbnb nor the Ministry of Tourism had answered our questions.