Oxford Airbnb Hosts Earned $1.1 Million During Ole Miss Games

Airbnb announced recently that the Oxford Airbnb host community welcomed 5,700 guests and earned more than $1.1 million in supplemental income during Ole Miss home football weekends.

This Oxford home was recently listed as one of Airbnb’s No. 1 Wish-Listed Listings in the top 20 Mississippi Cities.

This week, 460 Airbnb guests will be staying in Oxford earning hosts $80,000 in supplemental income during the Senior Day rivalry game versus Mississippi State on Thursday, according to a press release from Airbnb.

The weekend of the South Carolina game represented — by a significant margin — the largest influx of Airbnb guests to Oxford in the history of the platform.

The data also indicates that fans of the opposing teams are increasingly taking the opportunity to make the trip to Oxford and experience the city. For example, during the weekend of the Southern Illinois game, over 43 percent of the Airbnb guests to Oxford from the state of Illinois, while over 25 percent of the Airbnb guests during the South Carolina were from the state of South Carolina.

With local hotels achieving peak occupancy during Ole Miss games, the growth of home sharing in Oxford has allowed the city to host thousands of extra visitors and take full advantage of the unique economic opportunity presented by the football program. This benefits the local merchant community by keeping visitors’ food and shopping dollars within Oxford’s corporate limits.

At a broader level, Mississippi’s hotels have enjoyed steadily increasing occupancy rates and demand, illustrating the value to the region as short-term rentals expand lodging capacity during popular events and open up the market to families less able to afford hotels.

The region benefits further from the expanded lodging capacity during Ole Miss home weekends thanks to a tax agreement between Airbnb and the Mississippi Department of revenue that allows the company to collect the state sales tax and local tourism taxes on behalf of its local hosts and remit the revenue directly to the state. Airbnb recently announced that it delivered $1 million tax revenue to the state in the first year of their agreement, outpacing the original projection of $245,000.

Airbnb recently announced the No. 1 most wish-listed (i.e. popular/desired) Airbnb homes in the top 20 home sharing cities in Mississippi, including in Oxford and Tupelo.

Hottytoddy.com staff report