The goals of the Tourism Accommodation Bill are, on their face, reasonable and commendable. Unfortunately, the Bill as written fails to take into account the realities of the operational details of small, short-term rental providers (for more information click here). It also seems to turn a blind eye to the realities of life in Barbados and the inefficiencies that exist.
Application requirements are heavy: health permit, fire certificate, liability insurance, multi-hazard plan, plus any additional info the Minister requests. For small/micro-hosts, this is real time and money.
Security safe in every unit and multi-hazard plan requirements are blanket rules that do not scale to risk. The generator/water-tank rule for >20 units is sensible, but many <20-unit operators still face significant planning/documentation duties. There is also the challenge of access to sufficient generators (or safes, or water tanks, etc.), and the delays that will be required to get the necessary stock into the island (not to mention the costs associated with this).
Data and admin load: Mandatory photo-ID collection, 7-year guest record retention and monthly occupancy reports create privacy, storage and compliance overhead, especially for owner-operators. It also greatly raises the risks of data breaches for tourists and may run afoul of rules around the world (operators now will have to comply with the GDPR regulations for any European guests, as an example). This further adds to the impact of the bill.
Inspection powers are broad, which is typical in safety regulation, but paired with high fines and limited admin capacity, the risk of inconsistent enforcement is non-trivial. Government agencies already struggle to inspect and manage facilities on the record. This bill potentially adds 4,000-6,000 new entities that have to be managed. Our belief that government can deliver these services in a timely fashion is very low.
Marketing penalties: Misstatements about licensing/classification can trigger offences, even for inadvertent errors in online listings. Platforms are mentioned for price transparency, but responsibilities are not otherwise shared with intermediaries. As an example, AirBnB does not have the concept of classifications that the government requires. The government also requires facilities to identify their 'star level,' but that isn't up to the hosts on these platforms as is driven by tourist reviews.
The fines: They are the highest in the world for the sector and well out of line with every other piece of legislation in existence.
If thousands of properties must compile permits, inspections and plans within initial windows, government inspection bottlenecks could force operators into limbo or uneven compliance. The Act has grace periods, but not a clear service-level for approvals. That is where “who gets processed first” concerns can creep in.
The combined cost of liability insurance, accessibility retrofits over 5 years, security equipment/safes and planning work may push some marginal listings offline, reducing distributed tourism spend in neighbourhoods and overall economic activity on the island.
Collecting and storing photo IDs and detailed guest records for 7 years raises data-security obligations most micro-operators are not set up to meet. Guidance on secure retention and breach response would help. Ideally, scrapping the requirement that operators, who are not trained on data security, maintain extremely sensitive data would be better. The Bill as written also would bring all operators under the Data Protection Act - 2019 as a "Data Controller", that would add even more burden. (You can read the DPA here to see the full extent of the Act and the conditions it carries.)
As was demonstrated recently by the 'tint legislation,' there is finite access to materials, supplies and skilled labour in the island. Asking thousands of properties to make upgrades in lock-step will choke our ports, supply chains and tradespersons. This will also impact non-rental property owners as they will not be able to make improvements to their home or business in a timely fashion.
Basic supply-and-demand economics state that when scarcity exists, prices will climb. This Bill as written, with the aggressive timeline as written, will create conditions of scarcity, which will unfairly disadvantage small operators, who have to buy locally (which is a benefit to the island), while large hotels will simply ship in needed materials using their existing concessions.
The Bill modernizes standards, safety and consumer protections, and gives a structured path to licensing with some grace periods. Its one-size-fits-all compliance stack, however, could over-burden small and micro- operators, unless the Ministry implements tiering, templates, timelines and support. Financial burdens of compliance are non-trivial for small operators, as they are already burdened with requirements from the platforms on which they operate. If those implementation choices are made well, Barbados can raise standards without shrinking the diverse accommodation ecosystem that feeds the wider local economy. However, the Bill as written (and the Minister's appearance on Brass Tacks) provide no comfort that government is prepared to understand and help this sector.