Good morning. I am Alex Dagg, and I am Airbnb's public policy manager here in Canada. I am also an Airbnb host. I would like to express my thanks to all members of the finance committee for your time today.
The Government of Canada has focused its last two budgets on middle-class Canadians. While Canada's overall economic picture has been positive in recent months, many Canadian families haven't felt as fortunate. Wages have stagnated for many years, and household debt remains high. Meanwhile, the cost of living keeps on growing in Canada. Statistics released just this week show that the cost of renting a one-bedroom apartment is about $2,000 in both Vancouver and Toronto.
Airbnb gives Canadians a chance to earn some extra money by sharing their home, allowing them to keep 97% of the listing price on our platform, and earn some extra money from their most important asset, which is their home. That means 97ยข of every dollar earned on on Airbnb stays right here in communities across Canada, and the same cannot be said about the hotel industry.
The reality is that the tourism pie is growing. Today, almost 10% of the global economy is travel and tourism. This represents $7.2 trillion of global GDP, which is $2 trillion more than global oil revenues. Home sharing is allowing everyday middle-class Canadians to benefit from this explosive growth while democratizing travel, and allowing more people, from millennials to seniors, to experience the world.
Around 80% of our hosts in Canada are occasionally sharing their primary residence and earn about $4,000 per year. About 57% of our hosts report they use Airbnb to help afford staying in their home, and 7% of them have said that home sharing has saved them from eviction or foreclosure.
Since 2008, women around the globe have earned more than $10 billion on Airbnb. In fact, 60% of our hosts in Canada are women, and nearly 5% of them have reported they use the income they have made on Airbnb to support a new business. We are proud of the role we've played in Canada and around the world to help women independently achieve greater financial, professional, and social empowerment.
Seniors are also some of our best and busiest hosts, many of whom face increasing costs while living on fixed incomes. Income from Airbnb is helping them to stay in their homes and age in place. In Toronto, a typical senior Airbnb house earns $6,700 a year.
Over the past year, Canada has welcomed nearly 3.5 million guest arrivals from throughout the world on Airbnb. Our surveys show that guests choose Airbnb because it's more affordable, and 35% of our guests have said they would not have travelled, or would not have stayed as long without access to our platform.
Airbnb allows more tourists from within Canada and abroad to experience the beauty of our country and the diversity of our cities, while also benefiting local businesses, like shops and restaurants, and businesses that are not just in the tourist zones but neighbourhood businesses where guests stay.
Over the past year in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, Airbnb guests spent $329 million in restaurants. Airbnb and our hosts are generating new tax revenues for governments, both directly through hotel, tourist, and income taxes, and indirectly through economic spinoffs.
As a company we have entered into tax partnerships with more than 350 jurisdictions globally. This includes a new agreement just announced in August in Quebec, where we have agreed to collect and remit on the Airbnb platform the 3.5% lodging tax on bookings in the province of Quebec. This is our first agreement in Canada.
We have also worked with the Canada Revenue Agency, starting last tax season, to promote income tax compliance among our hosts by providing 55,000 Canadian hosts across the country with individualized statements of their earnings on our platform as well as links to the CRA website explaining how to report this income on their tax return.
In conclusion, I want to thank the committee for considering the benefits that the sharing economy brings to our communities and to middle-class Canadians. Home sharing has become a lifeline for many of our hosts, allowing them to stay in their homes, support their small business, or save for their children's education.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak today.