Sedona is a hotspot for tourism, and many small business owners say the short-term rental industry is currently crushing the hospitality industry. Governor Ducey signed a law prohibiting a city or county from regulating short-term rentals like Air BnB.
Realtors have sold many homes in Sedona to people who weren’t quite ready to retire and live there, and realtors have told new owners to use their homes as Air BnB rentals, and real estate agents would help them with that.
As a result, hotel and minimum wage workers have been deprived of their search for accommodation. Many restaurants, hotels and other small businesses struggle to find workers. According to one estimate, they are missing thousands. A restaurant owner has two restaurants, he closes one twice a week to transfer that staff to the other restaurant to keep it open.
A local doctor may have to close their practice because they cannot find someone to work in front of their office. Steve Segner is the owner of El Portal and has been working on this issue from the start, including trying to change the law. Susan Lisovicz spoke with him about all of this.
There are tourist destinations all over the United States complaining about the same. Segner said Sedona was worse because of certain laws. He said that over the past year, home prices in Sedona have gone up 40%. He said people are being driven out of buying homes in Arizona because there is no affordable housing.
He said there have been a lot of people who have lost their homes in the area because they cannot afford it. They have to move out of town, or some families even live in caravans. Local citizens complained about this and the traffic from visitors.
Segner said he was not against Air BnB. He even said he owns a couple himself. We also explained why this is not a problem in other tourist areas in Arizona.
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