San Francisco STR

San Francisco became the first US city to formally legalise and regulate short-term rental activity when its STR ordinance came into force in February 2015, creating a registration framework that other cities and, eventually, Caribbean jurisdictions would study closely. Jamaica’s tourism sector continued its growth trajectory, Airbnb was expanding aggressively in the Caribbean, and HomeAway remained the preferred platform for the island’s established villa rental sector.

The second half of 2014 produced the first formal STR regulatory frameworks in the United States and Spain: San Francisco passed its landmark ordinance in October and Barcelona froze new STR licences in November, establishing the two contrasting regulatory archetypes — permit and manage versus freeze and restrict — that would define the global policy debate for the decade ahead. Meanwhile Airbnb had crossed a US$10 billion valuation, and Jamaica’s vacation rental sector grew with no equivalent policy conversation underway.