More than 1000 businesses renting out Tauranga rooms on Airbnb may be paying commercial rates in future.

Tauranga City councillors are copying Auckland and are looking at rating properties, which rent out rooms over online platforms like Airbnb.

Auckland's councillors decided last week that its ‘bed tax', the Accommodation Provider Targeted Rate, should also apply to homes rented out for more than 180 nights a year on websites like AirBnB and Bookabach.

Airbnb's website states there are more than 300 Tauranga homes registered on Airbnb. Hospitality NZ bay of Plenty and Waikato regional manager Alan Sciascia says the number is closer to 1000.

'It is a considerable concern that such a number of properties are operating as businesses, but they are not being treated as businesses. We are fully in support of everybody being treated the same,” says Alan.

Tauranga commercial businesses are currently levied a fee to reimburse the city council for the cost of promoting the region. It is an overhead not currently incurred by Tauranga Airbnb properties.

'Unless a business is being treated as a business, they are not incurring a fee so these private residences are not incurring the same level of costs as are traditional business like hotels and motels etetcera,” says Alan.

He says there is a place in the market for the likes of Airbnb, particularly over the peak summer season of December, January and February, when the demand for beds in Tauranga is such that there would not be enough available accommodation if Airbnb wasn't able to operate.

'But that aside we are quite happy for those businesses to operate, so long as they are being treated as businesses.”

Councillors have directed staff to investigate how Airbnb businesses can be rated, to report back to council as part of the next Annul Plan Process.