Over the past few years short-term rentals for touristic purposes got more and more popular and are still a very well-liked opportunity to make money, espe-cially in times of low interest rates like right now. Apartment rentals can be seen as billion-dollar businesses. The best example for that is the online plat-form Airbnb which has given the expression ‘sharing economy’ a whole new meaning. However, renting comes with many ramifications, especially from a tax point of view. Therefore, this master thesis should help outline the changes of short-term rentals over the past years in relation to the continuous growth of the sharing economy as well as the opportunities and risks as a consequence thereof. And in the course of that, the question, which role is assigned to taxa-tion should be answered.
In order to answer the research question, qualitative research has been conducted. In total seven different experts in their field have been interviewed. They all have some bearing on the tourism sector or renting in general and provided the needed information for this study. The participants were asked mainly open-ended questions which helped collecting detailed information that could be evaluated interpretively in the end. These results were evaluated and summarized before the final conclusion has been drawn.
The findings were that the subject of taxes was not the main topic to the partic-ipants. Other things were perceived as more important. The sharing economy represents a long-term trend, and the fast pace is more present than ever. Right now, there are a lot of problems in the tourism sector, one of them is shortage of skilled workers. The future is towards sustainable tourism. Landlords and hoteliers have to adapt to that to remain on a competitive basis. The Tyrolean tourism is based on a small-structured and family-run business landscape. The combination of sustainability, quantity and quality is the primary goal in order to stand out from the competition.
Even if there have already been a lot of studies carried out, further research could target other destinations in order to capture a diversity of experience as this study concentrates mainly on the area Tyrol. Furthermore, this research study was only conducted over a short period of time. For the purpose of find-ing the opportunities and risks of this business model and the sharing economy, the period of time should be years, not months. Hence, the study is more valid and reliable when it comes to monitoring the development.