【Summit Senior Figures Interview】Interview with Roger Carter, member of the WTCF Expert Committee: The negatives of Shared Economy should be face positively

During the Chongqing Fragrant Hills Tourism Summit, Mr. Roger Carter, a member of the WTCF Expert Committee was interviewed by the media. He gave us his opinions on the theme of “Shared Economy and The Development of World Tourism Cities.”

Mr. Carter said, “Shared Economy is taking significant part of our travelling and tourism in the future, at the moment the influence is yet small, but it has become more and more important to tourism industry. It is important to recognize that shared economy has positive aspects and negative aspects as well, and it’s important in the future to maximize positive aspects and address the challenges of the negatives.”

Mr. Carter thought that people are going to experience lots of different choices through the growth of shared economy. Also, it creates new opportunities in terms of new experiences. Shared economy is more of a lifestyle, particularly when you get down to smaller towns, cities, or rural areas. It’s an opportunity for everyone in the community to benefit. Also, shared economy means of creating additional capacity within a city or another destination at very little cost. This is relevant in developing countries and developing regions where they want to bring in more tourism. However, instead of investing more money on accommodation infrastructure, inviting the community to participate will be a very quick way to improve a city’s capacity.

“When you want to hold a big event, let’s say you are going to host a conference or exhibition where more than thousands of people visiting and gather in a city, but you don’t have enough hotel rooms, you need shared economy to create more capacity. So that is very significant benefit.”

“A community benefiting from sharing economy will not only invite more tourists to the city, but also make sure that the money is going to stay in the local economy. A lot of money will stay within the local community and it goes straight to the residents.”

“I think there are lots of positives. But at the same time, it becomes a lack of controllability.” Mr. Carter continued, “The negatives are, firstly it can create an impact on the housing stock in very popular areas in the city. There are two examples, in Berlin and Barcelona, they are very popular cities in Europe and millions of people visit them every year. The area within the central city, more and more residences are moving out of the area, and leave it to visitors. So those areas are starting to lose their character. They are losing their local community because people are moving out of the area to sell their property or retain their property themselves for visitor uses. So one of the problems is that more and more of the local area is not becoming the local housing area, but becoming accommodations for visitors. Compared to local residents, visitors are creating a much more different environment for the area. I think that needs to be controlled and treated very carefully in order to get the balance.”

“Some cities have plans to imply regulations, where properties are being used but not paying local taxes, don't have insurance, and no one to check the service quality. And that need to be addressed in some cities. In Europe in Berlin, Barcelona the two cities that I mentioned, they’ve recognized that they have got to find a way to control what is happening in their cities. Sharing economy should also paying taxes. They’ve got to be properly insured and run under certain regulations.”

“It needs to be regulated, maybe by a registration system, maybe by local city regulations. It is about providing insurance. They need to keep the quality of the service and if they did not fit the request, they need to do something to improve it. I think the review system is very good because it helps provide, not only the customers review products but the products review customers. The property owner would find out who has used their product in reviews and what kind of customers are going to stay at their property. And customers would stay at times when they are using the service.”

“A lot of industries are already doing it to building a sharing platform. I think a good part is a lot of cities have already recognized the challenges. It is a very common sense that traditional operators would be challenged very much. They need to be creative in order to meet more opportunities, and to increase their business, maybe in different ways but the opportunities are for all.”