NORTH MYRTLE BEACH, SC (WBTW) – A newer option for tourists to stay in the Myrtle Beach area is getting more popular.
Airbnb, which allows people to offer short-term rentals for rooms and homes, says Horry County hosts on the service received millions of dollars in income last year.
Jim Heffernan has owned a vacation rental house in the Crescent Beach section of North Myrtle since 2006.
“There isn’t much you’re going to need when you come here,” Heffernan said. “All the guests get a cart when they come here. They can take the cart to the beach.”
After Hurricane Matthew destroyed the roof, Heffernan renovated the first floor of “Heffs’ Hideaway” and he moved in, while turning the second floor into two units for Airbnb.
“It’s worked out really well financially,” he said. “The guests have been coming in. We don’t have a lot of vacancy, so we’re really happy.”
Airbnb says Horry County is a growing market.
The short-term rental app says about 131,000 guests stayed in Horry County last year, up about 80 percent from 2017. The only county busier than Horry on Airbnb in 2018 was Charleston County.
Those guests generated more than $19 million of income for hosts.
“For the local vacation rental community in Myrtle Beach, this is a really tremendous tool for them to just reach a new generation and take their small business to the next level,” said Airbnb spokesperson Ben Breit.
About 695,000 guests rented through Airbnb in South Carolina last year. That generated about $111 million for the state’s roughly 8,500 hosts.
Airbnb says its deal with the state requires it to take in accommodations taxes in Horry County.
“That authorized Airbnb to collect those state and local taxes and remit it to the state, the same way that hotels do it,” Breit said.
Heffernan says he’s already booked for a lot of 2019.
“There’s going to come a time where I won’t want to get that busy,” he said. “I’m going to say, ‘That’s too much. I don’t want that.’ Right now, we still want to get more guests.”
Airbnb also says increases in hotel revenue in the state show that Airbnb is complementing the hotel industry and not competing with it.
Beaufort, Greenville and Richland counties round out the top five most popular counties in the state on Airbnb in 2018. Georgetown County was sixth and about 16,000 guests generated $2.5 million for hosts.
Florence County hosts generated $146,000 from about 1,700 guests. Hosts in Darlington County made $66,000 from about 6,000 guests. Robeson County, North Carolina, hosts earned $50,000 from about 400 guests.
Income for hosts in Marion, Dillon and Marlboro counties was less than $10,000.