Airbnb is calling on the government to continue to recognise hosts on its short-term rental platform as informal businesses.
The platform wants especially to keep hosts who do so as an extra source of income, operating without the burdens that tend to come with being formally registered as tourism operators.
Gig economy work continues to be a bone of contention in SA, as in other parts of the world. While those operating in areas of mobility or transport — dominated by Uber and Bolt — are fighting for greater protection under the law, with some fighting for recognition as workers, Airbnb wants to maintain the informality associated with its platform.
Airbnb has written to policymakers in response to the draft green paper on the Development and Promotion of Tourism in SA proposing a series of measures that it says will help build “a more inclusive tourism economy, and empower government and the private sector to work together to address important issues, such as systemic barriers to entry and inequality”.
Airbnb, which operates as an online marketplace focused on short-term accommodation, has 4-million hosts on its platform globally with 65,000 listings in SA. In 2019, the company estimated its contribution to the SA economy at about $685m (R11.8bn).
The typical host in SA earned more than R25,400 in 2021, and more than R12,900 on average during the past winter.
The company’s main thrust is for the government to continue to allow the informality of gig economy accommodation businesses made possible by platforms like Airbnb to continue without the red tape that normally weighs down formalised businesses.
“What we’re asking is for the government to recognise the informality and to be OK with that. Rather than trying to push informal enterprises into becoming formal businesses ... recognise this informal activity,” Velma Corcoran, regional lead for Middle East and Africa at Airbnb, told Business Day.
“And that is why we’re so proactive around the regulation. We don’t want them to necessarily formalise it. We’re saying: leave these enterprises as informal, and in doing so we think that by setting up a register they can have the information they need,” she said on the sidelines of the SA Investment Conference.
Airbnb’s lobby effort has four main points:
• Set up a framework for the regulation of short-term rentals and the establishment of an online national registration system. The company is hoping to make a distinction between those hosts who list their properties informally as a source of extra income, versus professional business such as bed and breakfasts or hotel operators whose main income is derived from accommodation.
• A clear definition of “short-term rentals”.
• Increased collaboration between private and public sector players.
• What Airbnb calls “investment in tourism dispersal projects”, which has to do with growing tourism in lesser visited parts of the country outside popular tourist destinations like Cape Town and Durban.
Airbnb, which lost 80% of its revenue when Covid-19 hit, says more South Africans are becoming hosts because they see it as a way to make ends meet.
Corcoran said half of Airbnb hosts said they were continuing to do so because they wanted to be able to stay in their homes and pay their mortgages, while 46% said they were hosting because they needed extra income to get by.
“Pushing people to register a business gives reassurance. We are proposing these regulations to give an assurance around allowing the informality because ... getting SA to its 2030 goals, we need 11-million jobs. Nine-million of those are going to come from SMMEs and 2-million are going to come from the informal sector,” Corcoran said.
“The government’s tendency is one to formalise the informal economy. Actually, we think there are mechanisms to enable and allow the informality in a way that works for the government and can ultimately allow everyday South Africans to make money from tourism, which with the cost of living crisis is very important.”
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