For a year and a half, Denitsa Chaeva has been renting out her apartment in Bansko for short-term rent. He registered it according to the Bulgarian legislation, but continues to fight against unfair competition.
“The difference between people like me who are registered and those who are not is that I have additional costs, of course – taxes, patent tax, tourist tax, I pay for each night. Others who are not registered save this money, and accordingly undercut the prices of overnight stays for the entire market,” says Denitsa Chaeva, sales manager at a property management company.
As the largest short-term rental property management company in our country with a portfolio of over 1,000 apartments, Denitsa has a view of the entire sector.
“In the last, maybe a month, let’s say, there has been quite a large influx in municipal tourism enterprises in the cities so that people can register their apartments, which means that they have been working a lot in the gray sector up to this point. It’s as if people were waiting for these more effective actions,” she points out.
The new European regulation creates a common framework for collecting and sharing data on short-term accommodation in the European Union. If the owner does not have registration or submits incorrect information, the platform will remove or block his ad.
The Ministry of Tourism will directly monitor the implementation.
“Guest rooms and apartments, according to the Law on Tourism, are currently over 29,000 in terms of number of certificates. The platforms will be able to remove all those accommodations that do not have a valid registration number,” says Savina Nedyalkova, Director of International Activities and Visa Regimes at the Ministry of Tourism.
“We are making the market more transparent, competition fairer and consumer protection – at a higher level. This will lead to greater security for the tourists themselves who choose this type of accommodation, and this percentage is growing more and more. These are places that are increasingly sought after by tourists on a European and global scale,” she also points out.
According to her, the ministry does not expect a price increase. “We do not expect a price increase, but in any case, this is something that the market regulates. The impact on the part of the state is to monitor the legality of the registration of these objects and to protect consumers,” says Nedyalkova.
Lawyer Dimitar Yanev is adamant that strict regulation will lighten the tourism industry, but will most likely raise prices as well.
“Actually, this is a protection for people to carry out their business without fear of sanctions from the state. Already the platforms that are for offering services are obliged to provide data to the Bulgarian authorities and institutions about how many accommodations there are for the specific month in a given tourist site,” commented lawyer Dimitar Yanev.
“Here, another abuse is broken, which means that they will have to pay taxes and fees on absolutely all nights that have passed through the given platform, which will most likely lead to certain merchants and individuals raising their prices, possibly,” he adds.
Regardless of whether the activity is carried out “from time to time” or is a primary business, if the property is offered to the public for short-term accommodation for a fee, it falls within the scope of the registration and reporting rules. For users of this type of service, there will be more security and information about the selected locations.
