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3210 comments delivered to parliament (closed 31 October 2023)
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The Department of Tourism called for public comment on the Green Paper on The Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa.
Have your say – shape the paper. [CLOSED]
Problems for Airbnb
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- The Green Paper proposes that “thresholds” are imposed on STRs (which could mean “night caps” – a limitation on the number of nights that a host can list their accommodation per annum).
- Airbnb is concerned about the systems the NDT is looking at as examples for the approach South Africa should follow. These examples include onerous registration systems which require inspections and pre-approval before a Host can begin operating.
- The Green Paper states that listing on platforms creates a potential increase in cost of doing business for “regulated accommodation entities” due to listing on multiple booking platforms incurring unregulated commission costs.
- The threshold proposal will most definitely throttle small businesses
- Reduced employment in the informal sector e.g. cleaners
- Tedious compliance requirements
- Approval or regulation by government always lacks urgency and has a tendency to drag on, which will affect the smooth running of the business and the livelihood of hosts
- Suppression of entrepreneurship and job opportunities
- Reduced number of hosts / increase in hosting costs will make it unaffordable for some people to travel
- Women constitute 63% of employment within the food and beverage sub-sector and approximately 60% of employees in the accommodation sub-sector. Effective skills programmes can therefore support the inclusive development of the tourism
“The Green Paper seeks to facilitate growth and transformation of the tourism sector by creating an enabling regulatory environment for the present and future, especially with regards to technological developments. The Green Paper further seeks to increase the tourism sector’s contribution to the broader economy and drive employment and entrepreneurship whilst enabling the sector to adapt to future crises. I, therefore, invite the public to study The Green Paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in South Africa and provide us with substantive comments,” stated Minister De Lille.
The vision of the Green Paper is to sustainably and competitively grow the South African economy through an inclusive, inspiring, visitor-oriented tourism sector that consistently builds partnerships to strengthen the impact of the sector nationally, regionally and globally. Its aim is also to address barriers to tourism growth; and to respond to the social cohesion imperatives of the country.
Key elements include but are not limited to:
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- Implementation of a research-based tourism safety response programme in partnership with relevant agencies;
- Develop and regularly review tourism crisis management framework to enable a response to crises;
- Implementation of Tourism BBBEE Codes & strengthening mechanism for access to finance;
- Facilitation of ease of access to the destination, especially as it relates to immigration and transport.
- Recommitting the sector to the responsible tourism agenda, and
- Regulation of short-term rental accommodation to ensure policy certainty.
To enable the sector to reach its potential, The Green Paper focuses on four policy thematic areas with a specific focus under each.