Pandemic parties continue to abound! Parties at a San Diego downtown high-rise are stirring up trouble. Numerous complaints of loud parties at vacation rentals have been made to the San Diego Police Department. Compared to all of 2019, these parties nearly tripled in the first eight months of this year. As soon as the county began to relax its COVID-19 lockdown orders, disturbances skyrocketed. According to San Diego City Attorney Mara Elliott, vacation rentals are illegal in residential areas, but city officials are not currently enforcing it.
Which begs the question - how do you enforce party bans? Airbnb stopped all listings from accepting more than 16 people…. Which immediately blocked tens of thousands of lodges, wedding halls and multi-group venues from advertising on Airbnb. Epic fail. Besides, 3 or 4 people can book a property then message all their friends to show up after.
Proactive monitoring is one possible solution. Vrbo and NoiseAware have partnered to offer a modern noise monitoring option for homeowners. The goal is to provide a way to wirelessly monitor the decibel level inside vacation rentals. If noise levels reach past a certain threshold, homeowners and PMs can be notified and take action. So go ahead, mic up your rentals and tell your guests to pipe down.
Curious - how many of you already use NoiseAware or Minut? Leave a comment below or send us a message. We’ve considered integrating with them, and I’m curious how many readers already have these in place.
If you have been waiting to take a trip to paradise, the wait may soon be over. At long last, Hawaii officials have stated that they feel “confident the state is ready” to reopen the islands. After three possible reopenings that didn’t occur, the state is ready to reopen tourism on October 15th. Travelers can now avoid that 14 day quarantine by testing negative for COVID-19 within 72 hours of arrival. Hop off that 8-12 hour plane ride and proceed directly to swabbing!
To kick things off all County and State Beach Parks on Hawai‘i Island reopened at 7:00 a.m Thursday. If you plan on traveling straight to the beach just remember, all beachgoers must wear masks, social distance and gatherings can only be up to 10 people max. Maybe just keep your snorkel mask on the whole time you’re in Hawaii?
Who here likes to be nickeled and dimed? No one? Strange! Escambia County, FL has voted Thursday to tack on an extra penny to the current four cents on every dollar spent on hotel beds through the Tourist Development Tax. This tax change goes into effect April 1, 2021, but don’t worry - that extra penny will improve your quality of life! Another week, another government increasing lodging taxes. It would be interesting to see what tax types are increasing at the fastest rate - meal, gas, lodging, etc - over the last few years. Lodging tax has gotta be near the top of the list.
