Jet2 boss says unlicensed accommodation is causing overtourismThe Independent
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00:00Steve Heapy, you are the UK's leading tour operator, therefore you are guilty as charged of creating over-tourism.
00:08Not true. We're responding to demand and the majority of the people that we take on our aircraft are staying in licensed accommodation.
00:19The problem with over-tourism is unlicensed accommodation, i.e. those properties that are rented privately.
00:27For years, the licensed tourism model worked. You knew how many hotels there were and how many rooms.
00:34So 100 hotels, 100 rooms, averaging two and a half people in a room, that's 25,000 people per week in the resort.
00:42You knew what it was, you could manage it.
00:45With the proliferation of unlicensed tourism, it's very hard to predict and that's put pressure on local services, etc.
00:52And residents, understandably, have become upset with noisy neighbourhoods and increasing rent.
01:01Now when people stay in these properties, very often they don't have a tourism licence.
01:08They don't have health and safety checks like all our hotels do.
01:12There's zero health and safety check.
01:13Could be staying in a death track with exposed wires.
01:16And very often the people who rent the properties don't pay tax on their income.
01:20So there's no money being recycled from their business venture back into the local community.
01:27So that's pretty much what's caused it.