WA short-stay accom reforms to save countless jobs
Government moves to tackle problem-heavy explosion of unregulated short-stay properties
Proposed Western Australia Government reforms to the state’s unregulated short-stay accommodation sector have been roundly welcomed by the Australian Hotels Association (WA).
The organisation sees the release of the Draft Position Statement: Planning for Tourism and Guidelines as key to providing certainty to the regulated accommodation industry while importantly, safeguarding countless local jobs.
AHA(WA) CEO, Bradley Woods, said the reforms are an important step towards ensuring WA’s legal and licensed accommodation industry continues to grow as well as safeguarding residential neighbourhood amenity.
“In the absence of any regulation, the explosion of short-stay properties has led to countless problems across WA,” Mr Woods said.
“Community amenity has suffered through the rise of party-houses and illegal activity while unregulated short-stay properties have compounded the issue of housing affordability.”
The Draft Position Statement, he said, proposes a regulatory model that will allow genuine, hosted home sharing to continue, but will see proper regulation of unlicensed commercial accommodation services.”
“Mandatory registration is a baseline requirement being adopted in jurisdictions around the world,” he said.
“Setting a generous limit on the number of days unhosted properties can be let before a development approval is required will ensure residential homes remain as such and community amenity is protected.”
“WA’s dire labour shortages are far more pronounced in areas where short stay accommodation has been allowed to run rampant – Western Australians cannot afford to live in parts of the state because such a high percentage of properties have been taken off the long-term rental market.”
Mr Wood said regulation was clearly necessary to reverse the explosion of unregulated hotels operating within communities.
While platforms, such as Airbnb, have a role to play in WA’s accommodation sector, allowing them to grow in an unregulated, unfettered form is clearly not in the public interest.
“Tens of thousands of Western Australian jobs are in the accommodation industry – it is no longer tenable for their jobs to be jeopardised by unregulated competitors.”
Mike Parker-Brown is a UK-trained and qualified journalist and an award-winning travel communicator with more than 30 years experience.
Since 2002, Mike has worked as a freelance writer and PR consultant providing his services to major organisations in Australia and internationally in the tourism, aviation, hospitality, recruitment and export marketing sectors.
