{"id":644475,"date":"2026-04-30T13:00:06","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:00:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=644475"},"modified":"2026-04-30T13:03:23","modified_gmt":"2026-04-30T11:03:23","slug":"cape-town-mayor-airbnb-choked-r350-million-hotel-investment-in-the-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/business\/644475-cape-town-mayor-airbnb-choked-r350-million-hotel-investment-in-the-city.html","title":{"rendered":"Cape Town Mayor: Airbnb choked R350 million hotel investment in the city"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cape Town mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that Airbnb’s operating model in the Western Cape capital is directly impeding major investments from international hotel brands.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said that some businesses using the platform were dodging rates and tariffs that would normally apply to major accommodation providers in Cape Town, and that a new bylaw would put a stop to this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We’ve got some of the world’s leading hotel brands and local hotel brands, and they say that they would like to build a new R350 million hotel in the city, but can’t justify it.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill-Lewis said these brands would rather operate like Airbnb because it was more accessible and would cost significantly less.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“It would be easier to buy a whole bunch of apartments and rent them out like a hotel, but pay a fraction of tariffs and charges. It is not fair and right,” the mayor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City of Cape Town released the new bylaw for public consideration to slow the proliferation of Airbnb and other digital platforms that could stifle hotel investment and job creation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Speaking at the Cape Chamber of Commerce, Hill-Lewis said the new bylaw aimed to clamp down on commercial businesses that use Airbnb to avoid commercial rates and charges.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Proposed Short-Term Letting Bylaw was first revealed in February 2025 and intended to make it more difficult for businesses to “game the system.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cape Town is Airbnb’s most popular destination in South Africa. Digital nomads and affluent tourists often use the platform, and Hill-Lewis previously said Airbnb created around 100,000 jobs in the city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019, Cape Town implemented a bylaw limiting the maximum stay for non-permanent guests in residentially zoned properties to 30 consecutive days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill-Lewis argued that businesses operating short-term rentals, including many that use Airbnb, could not expect to offer hotel-like services while being taxed the same as homes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Airbnb allegedly pushed up property prices in Cape Town<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Airbnb data from 2025 showed that the six best-performing profiles in Cape Town controlled a combined 681 listings, 678 of which were entire houses or apartments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Statistics like these resulted in allegations that serial Airbnb operators inflated property prices across the city by reducing the supply of properties available to buy or rent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2025, real estate group Seeff indicated that the top five most expensive suburbs in South Africa<\/a> are all located in Cape Town. The city has nine of the 10 most expensive suburbs in the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the new bylaw, a property would no longer be considered “residential” if its total available bedrooms are listed for short-term rental for more than 50% of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Properties whose total bedrooms were listed as such for the duration would now be reclassified as a “business or commercial property” and have rates increased to match.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hill-Lewis said that the city would not go after “income supplementing activity”, meaning homeowners who occasionally rent out rooms or a “granny flat” in the backyard would not be affected by the bylaw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“We are interested in the large commercial enterprises who are holding back and cutting off hotel investment in Cape Town,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Earlier this year, Hill-Lewis said the city had already systemically identified non-compliant properties<\/a> which were paying residential rates while not acting as permanent residences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Airbnb and similar operators also faced increased scrutiny at a national level, with the Department of Tourism drafting a code of conduct for short-term rentals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This code of conduct is part of wider developments in the Tourism Amendment Bill of 2019, which could see Airbnb hosts made to pay higher costs to compete with hotels and guest houses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another proposal in the bill could give the tourism minister the power to limit the number of consecutive nights a customer can stay at a single Airbnb location.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Airbnb is collaborating with the department to develop a national registration system for short-term rentals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

MyBroadband asked Airbnb for comment on Hill-Lewis’s remarks, and it did not immediately respond by the time of publication. This article will be updated if comment is received.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis said that an incoming bylaw would stop serial Airbnb operators in the city from dodging higher rates and taxes. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341213,"featured_media":644487,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[18568,104913,18428,3616,73440,11631],"class_list":["post-644475","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-airbnb","tag-bylaws","tag-cape-chamber-of-commerce","tag-cape-town","tag-department-of-tourism","tag-geordin-hill-lewis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644475"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341213"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644475"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644475\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644529,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644475\/revisions\/644529"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}