The tourism charter has been gazetted and now applies to all members of that industry.

This includes:

Accommodation

• Hotels
• B & Bs
• Guesthouses
• Resorts
• Game Lodges
• Backpackers and hostels

Hospitality and Related Services

• Restaurants
• Conference Venues
• Professional Catering
• Attractions
• Consulting and professional services companies

• Tour wholesalers
• Tour operators
• Tourist guides
• Car Rental companies
• Coach operators

In line with the BEE Codes of Good Practice, the tourism charter defines EMEs, QSEs and generics. The difference is an EME is an enterprise with a turnover of less than R2.5 million per annun, and a QSE is one with an annual turnover of between R2.5 million  and R35 million.

The weightings for the charter has changed slightly.

Comment:
It is interesting to note that the importance of ownership has dropped in the new charter, at least until 2017. Management has increased, as has skills development. Procurement was worth 20 points but has dropped to 15, while enterprise development is going to drop by 2017. Socio economic development has increased slightly and will continue to increase by 2017.

Ownership in particular has been vastly relaxed. Not only has the weighting been dropped but the ownereship target has also dropped. The codes have set a target of 25% plus one vote for ownership, but the tourism charter has dropped those targets to 21% plus one vote.

More importance is attached to skills development which is now worth 20 points, but with the same targets as the codes.

The decrease in importance of procurement is regretable. Procurement is the driver behind encourging BEE compliance. There is now slightly less incenttive for tourism companies to ask for scorecards since they earn less points.

It is strange that enterprise development (ED) is dropping over the next 8 years while socio economic development (SED) is increasing. One would expect that more money needs to be ploughed into SED now which will eventually result in more ED. The current structure implies that we will need to spend more on charitable contributions in the future than we do now.