Ministry of athletics and Tourism of the Government of Tusk prepared draft amendment of the Hotel Services Act, which includes the extension of the scope of regulations to short-term rental of apartments and the anticipation for municipalities to make zones where accommodation services can only be provided in hotel facilities. Although the ministry's intentions sound like "market order" and harmonisation, their actual effect is different: unfair burdens for tiny entrepreneurs and de facto favouring large hotel operators.
The Tusk government hits hoteliers. The fresh draft law provides for the provision of rental forms which have been treated as part of the housing marketplace so far, peculiarly the short word rental of apartments, which is now to be formally a "hotel service". This is an crucial change: so far, specified forms have functioned on the basis of a much milder regime, with no duties circumstantial to hotels.
If the solutions enter into force, the landlord who rents the flat for 30 days or little will gotta enter them in the central list of accommodation facilities (CWTON) and comply with the catalogue of formal requirements. In turn, the municipality will be able to prohibit specified activities in selected zones, which means a real simplification of activities in city centres and attractive tourist locations.
For tens of thousands of landlords and micro-entrepreneurs who have been offering specified services on booking platforms for years, specified solutions mean costly investment in gathering hotel standards or liquidation of activities in the restricted area.
Although the task formally tries to separate “real hotels” from short-term rental, in practice its records favour entities with a large capital base. The tiny owner of respective apartments will not be able to easy transform their business into a full hotel facility: the essential fulfilment of additional fire and sanitation requirements generates costs that are frequently disproportionate to revenues in micro- and small-scale segments.
Larger hotel networks and investors with a separate legal structure are likely to cope with this better, focusing the supply of services in the hands of respective large players at the expense of thousands of local entrepreneurs.
The industry's comments at the public consultation phase emphasise that the task does not take into account the specificities of the short-term rental marketplace and its diversity. There is no detailed analysis of economical impacts — for tiny businesses and for local tourism markets. Critics indicate that the task does not separate between tiny services and large hotel facilities in a proportionate manner, which creates a hazard of unnecessary barriers to entry and endurance on the market.
The short-term lease marketplace in Poland has grown dynamically for years and is an crucial part of urban tourism and vacation stays. The rules that will rapidly limit this section can have far-reaching effects: reduce tourist traffic to city centres and reduce the flexibility to choose accommodation. Importantly, discrimination against short-term rental under the cloak of "market order" creates an illusion of consumer protection, but de facto exacerbates the monopolistic dominance of larger hotels and operators.
The anticipation for councils to establish zones where accommodation services can only be provided by hotel facilities opens the door to creating protectionist behaviors of local authorities, in the kind of the old regime. As a result, the owners of short-term housing can be excluded from the marketplace by local government decisions, which undermines the rule of predictability and sustainability of business conditions.
Although the ministry explains the changes in the request to organise the marketplace and to defend consumers, the actual form of the legislative draft strikes tiny owners of short-term rental, raising entry barriers and operating costs. The proposed powers of the municipalities and the extension of the hotel government to the short-term rental section do not correspond to the realities and needs of the market, but favour the concentration of services in the hands of larger operators who can afford effective lobbying.
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