When travelers swarm into popular summertime travel destinations along Lake Michigan or up north, the influx of visitors brings tourism dollars to the local economy.

But with the good comes the bad: the crowds often put a disproportionate strain on local communities’ infrastructure, as well as their ability to provide essential services like police, fire, and EMS response.

To address this situation, state Rep. Mark Tisdel and a bipartisan group of lawmakers on Tuesday introduced legislation to help tourist-heavy areas offset the additional cost of hosting visitors by giving them the ability to apply a modest, voter-approved, 3% tax on short-term accommodations such as hotels, motels, and homestays like AirBNBs to help fund essential services.

“Local communities incur expenses when hosting visitors,” said Tisdel, R-Rochester Hills. “This is about making sure that people who are benefiting from services are the ones paying for it. If someone is running a business by renting out a home, the cost of running that business should not get pushed onto their neighbors.”

The proposed legislation is enabling legislation, meaning it would not directly raise taxes. Rather, it would only give local governments the ability to hold a vote so the community can decide for itself if it wants to apply a tax on short-term accommodations.

Companion bills would require online booking platforms to collect the tax from customers at the point-of-sale on behalf of the state and local government. The money would then get distributed to local governments to cover expenses of essential services.

The companion bills are sponsored by state Reps. John Roth, R-Interlochen, and Donavan McKinney, D-Detroit.

House Bills 5138 through 5140 are now in the House Committee on Economic Competitiveness where they will get worked on further.