There are concerns among key tourism industry figures that the government lacks the staff and resources needed to inspect and register thousands of new short-term rental properties as required under the recently announced Tourist Accommodation Bill.
Presenting the bill to Parliament on Tuesday, Minister of Tourism Ian Gooding-Edghill said all of these properties will be required to be licensed, registered and inspected.
Currently, only hotels, apartments and guest houses are required to do so.
Saying that the fear of having to pay fines if found in breach will see a significant number of owners and operators seeking to get registered, President of the Barbados Entrepreneurship and Tourism Association (BETA), Dawne Pollard, stressed that human resources must be put in place to address this influx.
“There is a need to increase the staff at the Barbados Tourism Productivity Authority and the Barbados Tourism Marketing Inc. That’s a small team, and they have a big mandate now to register all these thousands of properties on this island. They need to increase their staff!” she insisted.
Pollard said BETA, which has 80 members with such properties, was also gearing up for an increase in their numbers.
Agreeing with the need to regulate these properties, she contended that the majority of the provisions outlined in the legislation are necessary to protect the island’s “bread and butter” industry.
In an interview with Barbados TODAY, she stated that the industry had grown exponentially since it was established by former Prime Minister Owen Arthur due to World Cup Cricket 2007, and that with thousands of such properties now available on various online platforms, including Airbnb, it was critical to ensure that these were well maintained, properly ventilated, and safe.
“We need to be registered. The places need to be inspected by health and fire. All properties should have liability insurance,” she said.
But Pollard disagreed with the move requiring that these properties be universally accessible: “I don’t think everybody has to be wheelchair accessible or disability accessible. If I think my property is, I can register it. There are stickers that they can put on your site.
“When you have your property, when it comes up, it says, ‘Oh there’s a pool. There’s disability access, there’s a tennis court’. There are icons for that.”
Also commenting on the resources that would be needed to have all of these businesses registered and licensed, Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Hotel and Tourism Association Ryan Forde said a significant burden would be placed on the inspection staff.
He said: “If you’re already looking at about 6 200 to 6 500 hotel rooms, over 13 000 when it comes to villas and shared accommodation, imagine you need to get all these inspections done on a yearly basis, and your team is ‘x’ [number] of people, and the inspection isn’t just somebody coming. You still need to get approvals for various reasons.
“Suppose you say there are two areas you need to improve in your house, or in your hotel or in your villa, and you can’t get the approval yet. You go and make those improvements, but then the person has hundreds more properties to go and see, so then you have to go back in a waiting line. So the challenge is going to definitely be there.”
Forde suggested that this could be addressed through the creation of private sector agencies to conduct inspections following the standards and processes set by the tourism ministry.
“Once that happens, then you add more resources, and persons can pay to get those inspections done,” he said. “It can be done at a quicker rate. Obviously, as we know, there are different areas where you have to get approval, whether that might be coming from … Barbados Revenue Authority or wherever. Collectively, both private and public sectors should be able to do it, because you should be able to enable businesses to get their approvals quicker and then operate, and that’s what drives the economy.”
Forde said the legislation would level the playing field within the accommodation sector in terms of what service and product levels were going to be, insisting that certain standards must be maintained.
While the majority of these individuals with shared accommodation were doing a great job, Forde acknowledged that there were others who had the potential to “tarnish the reputation of what is being offered in our lovely country”.
“So, ideally, it’s going to give an opportunity for persons to be educated and trained on what needs to be maintained, what needs to be offered,” he said, outlining that with this information and the increase in standards, more money would be earned.
jeniquebelgrave@barbadostoday.bb
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