Airbnb - Luzern Visitor Card

If the Airbnb is not registered with the city, and possibly does not pay visitors tax, they cannot issue visitors cards. If they are located in the city they can register, but perhaps they do not want to. Since they run other properties as well they probably know this. I don’t think it matters that they are a private landlord, but perhaps others know differently.

At any rate, it looks like you won’t get one this time around.

Normally the visitor's card is indeed contingent on the property collecting the routis tax. So it would appear that they do not do this, and that therefore the AirBnB is not entirely legal...

But anyway, that Visitor's card is not that useful. It only covers Luzern city proper, and I assume you will be wanting to venture outside of Luzern.

and that therefore the AirBnB is not entirely legal

swan there could be a whole host of reasons why the airbnb cant give you the card. The last that I would suspect is that the owner is a criminal. But a tiny bit of due dilligance is always good. Check a number of other listings and see if they post a license number or registration number on their listing. If they do, make sure this guy has as well.

I have always assumed the Visitors Card is a benefit offered by hotels, who probably belong to some kind of lodging association or pay dues to be able to offer the card. Nothing at all fishy about it if your host doesn’t offer it.

I have always assumed the Visitors Card is a benefit offered by hotels

The Visitor Card is automatically provided by your hotel, hostel, or any other registered accommodation in the city. This is standard practice all over Switzerland.

A quick look at AirBnB listings for Luzern and you will often see this exact wording:

All guests receive for free from the host the Lucerne Guest Card. It includes free bus transportation for the time of your stay in Lucerne as well as free wifi in most areas in Lucerne City.

I don't see any AirBnb with a registration number in Lucerne or maybe i don't know where to look for?
Found one AirBnb on the outskirts of Lucerne - Adligenswil where based on the reviews, the host is offering a city card but without the bus component. I did not even know that the visitor card also comes in multiple flavors.
But since the consensus here is that there's nothing fishy/illegal about the situation, I guess i'm gonna stick with my AirBnb.
Btw the AirBnB receipt shows something called as "occupancy tax", is that the same as tourist tax of Swiss or something else?

A zone 10 (Luzern, which includes Adligenswil) day ticket is 9.60 CHF. So just figure that into your AirBnb costs. That cost is buried in the room price in Luzern hotels anyway. There is also a big discount for buying a book of 6 day tickets.