What others saw as a rare natural event, Debby Spencer saw as an opportunity to jump on board one of the fastest-growing online business opportunities in the country.

Just before the August total solar eclipse, Spencer and her husband turned their rural Warren County home into what she’s calling Whispering Waters Retreat and signed up with the Airbnb online lodging service.

“We started for the eclipse,” Spencer said. “Within two hours of posting (on Airbnb.com), we booked the entire house. We had a couple from Chicago rent the whole house. That’s when I thought this might be a way to make some extra money. We have booked every weekend since.”

Spencer’s experience isn’t uncommon. Started in California in 2006 but officially launched as Airbnb in 2009, the online marketplace dealing as a broker for bed and breakfasts and other types of lodging has exploded. Airbnb now has more than 3 million lodging listings in 65,000 cities and 191 countries. It has about 150 million users who take advantage of the convenient way to book rooms.

The growth has trickled down to southcentral Kentucky. A search for Bowling Green on the Airbnb website turned up 133 available rentals in the region, ranging from single rooms listed for $35 per night to entire homes listed for as much as $1,500 per night.

Debbie Vernon, who retired after 43 years with Warren Rural Electric Cooperative Corp., hitched a ride on the fast-moving Airbnb trend in 2016. She bought the rural home in Plano that had been used by New Beginnings Therapeutic Riding and turned it into Hickory Springs bed and breakfast.

“I’ve done quite well,” Vernon said. “I started in April of 2016 and I’ve had approximately 178 guests over that period.”

Vernon rents three rooms and has a dining room that helps her create what she calls “more of a traditional bed and breakfast atmosphere.”

“I’ve always loved staying in bed and breakfasts,” Vernon said. “I’ve stayed in several all over the United States and just love the atmosphere. I wanted to do something like that.”

By opening their homes to travelers, entrepreneurs like Spencer and Vernon have helped expand the local hotel inventory, which can be exhausted for some of the big automobile-related events that come to town.

But they have also created a quandary for those who collect state and local taxes. With Airbnb handling all payments, many of these home-based businesses have been operating “off the books.”

That’s changing, at least at the state level.

Airbnb reached an agreement that took effect Oct. 1 in which it will collect and remit state taxes on behalf of its hosts. Airbnb is automatically collecting the state’s 6 percent sales tax and 1 percent state transient room tax and sending the money to the Kentucky Department of Revenue.

A Department of Revenue news release said Airbnb is expected to deliver more than $1 million in tax revenue annually through this agreement.

“Our goal is to work with all taxpayers fairly and equitably to ensure the appropriate taxes are paid, and this agreement achieves that,” Department of Revenue Commissioner Dan Bork said in the news release. “Kentucky’s tourism sector is a huge economic driver for the state, so it is important to collect revenues for enhancing the quality of life for Kentuckians and our visitors.”

Vicki Fitch, executive director of the Bowling Green Area Convention and Visitors Bureau, agrees that the new deal with Airbnb will help the state. But she’s hoping it will also lead to help on the local level.

“This will mean new tax money for our state,” Fitch said. “This will be really helpful for state government, but it did not include local transient taxes throughout the state.”

The Bowling Green CVB gets half the money generated through the 6 percent local transient room tax, with the rest going to the Southern Kentucky Performing Arts Center and Sloan Convention Center.

Fitch hopes the new agreement at the state level will lead to more Airbnb locations joining the local tax rolls as well.

One local Airbnb owner, Shawn Sinclair, said he didn’t know about the local transient room tax when he renovated a 4,600-square-foot home on College Street near Western Kentucky University and started renting rooms.

“I wasn’t aware of the taxes,” said Sinclair, who said the new Airbnb has been successful to the point of having almost every day booked in August and September. “Now the state, when a customer checks out, will add the 6 percent state tax. But I’ve just had to bite the bullet on the local taxes. Apparently, there are still people not yet complying with the local taxes.”

Airbnb operators Spencer and Vernon said they are anteing up their local taxes, but Fitch said tracking down all local operators and getting them on the tax rolls isn’t easy.

“We’re working with the city and county to get as many of them as we can signed on and reporting,” Fitch said. “I’m hopeful that we’re able to access the addresses so we can reach out and work with all of these home-sharing businesses.”

– Follow business reporter Don Sergent on Twitter @BGDNbusiness or visit bgdailynews.com.