Lifeline offered for Bay’s accommodation businesses

As holiday cancellation requests pour in for Nelson Mandela Bay, the city’s economic development, tourism and agriculture department is offering a short-term lifeline for accommodation establishments.

The accommodation establishments which charged commercial rates from October to December have a chance to have the fees credited on their municipal accounts.

However, they will still be charged residential rates if they live on the property.

The money will be used to offset the commercial rate charges and avoid further financial losses to the city, which is already struggling with a reduced rates collection.

Economic development, tourism and agriculture executive director Anele Qaba said tourism was a key industry that contributed to a hefty percentage of the city’s gross domestic product.

“To mitigate the challenges faced by the sector, the municipality has yet again been proactive in re-prioritising and restructuring the current tourism marketing budget,” he said.

“The aim of this intervention is to assist the industry by offering support to existing, registered tourism accommodation businesses with the objective of creating and sustaining employment and economic growth across the tourism industry.”

Establishments were given a similar investment retention incentive after the hard lockdown, with 96 successful applications and accounts credited to the tune of R4.8m.

Qaba said the department was finalising the budget for this round of the investment retention incentive.

“We will use those funds to facilitate the project in support of the industry.”

Owners can apply for the investment retention incentive by downloading an application form from www.nmbt.co.za/covid19.html and submitting the completed application, along with all necessary compliance documentation, to The Business Place on e-mail businessrescue@tbp.co.za.  

Qaba said the department also needed help from the Bay’s tourism business product owners.

The owners of tourism businesses in the city have been asked to complete a survey.

The outcome will be stored in a database which will ultimately be used to formulate strategies to help reignite demand in an industry that has been hammered by Covid-19.

“As a city we are asking all tourism product owners to complete and submit the survey as soon as possible.”

The data collected will be used for tourism marketing, industry communication, research, planning and formulation of tourism development strategies.

“The survey would help our department to shed light on what impact the Covid-19 lockdown restrictions had on the industry.

“This would assist us to implement strategies and plans where we can then offer support to the industry to help it recover from the negative effects that these lockdown regulations have had on its businesses and their employees,” Qaba said.

“The data will be used to identify additional support we can possibly offer the industry which is still struggling with the effect of Covid-19.”

The outcomes of the survey will be audited and added to the municipal database.

The 2020/2021 audit has been implemented by the department with the support of Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism.

The information will be used by the municipality for tourism planning and development purposes only.

Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism chair Shaun van Eck said: “We simply cannot carry on bleeding and not put a plaster on.”

Van Eck said the results from the questionnaire would only be used to assist the industry.

“Their great intentions were demonstrated by the rates rebates that they gave to tourism products during the lockdown,” he said.

“The information from these questionnaires will help us to understand the crisis situation better and will possibly even lead to further financial relief.

“This questionnaire is aimed at helping our tourism industry in Nelson Mandela Bay to survive.”

For further information, contact EDTA tourism marketing official Erenei Louw on 082-680-0153 or elouw@mandelametro.gov.za.

The questionnaire can be found here and once completed it must be e-mailed to reception@jupilog.co.za.

Alternatively, Jupilog Consulting can be contacted on 041-373-1289 or via e-mail at reception@jupilog.co.za.

This article is in partnership with Nelson Mandela Bay Tourism. For more information, go to: www.nmbt.co.za. #NelsonMandelaBayTourism, #Sharethebay

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