Trade and Industry Minister Dr Rob Davies has approved the draft Tourism Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) Codes, allowing members of the public 60 days to make inputs and comments before the codes are gazetted and become legally binding.

The Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) noted in a statement on Thursday that the draft codes deviated from the exempted microenterprise, qualifying small enterprise (QSE) and large enterprise thresholds set out in the Amended Generic Codes of Good Practice, to address the “unique features” of the sector.

According to the thresholds that applied under the draft codes, exempted microenterprises were those with revenue of less than R5-million a year, while QSE’s were those with yearly revenue of between R5-million and R45-million and large enterprises those that generated yearly revenue of over R45-million.

According to the Minister, these unique thresholds would ensure that the bulk of enterprises in the sector contributed to transformation, which, he argued, would not be the case were the thresholds under the Amended Generic Codes to be applied.

Under the code’s ownership element, the compliance target for black participation was 30% and 1 Vote, rather than the 25% and 1 Vote under the Generic Codes. The DTI expected the 30% sectoral target to ensure an increase in the transferring of economic assets to and mainstreaming of black people in the sector.

Meanwhile, to create more opportunities for emerging black-owned enterprises across the supply and value chains of established businesses, the sector had set the target for supplier development at 3% of net profit after tax, which was higher than the 2% outlined in the Generic Codes.

The amended tourism sector code would also see an allocation of more points than under the Generic Codes for procurement spend from empowered suppliers that were at least 51% black-owned.

Twelve weighting points had been allocated to incentivise support for sustainable growth of black-owned enterprises, said the department.

The sector remained of the view that, under the socioeconomic development element, it maintained the three bonus points for the status of Tourism Marketing South Africa levy collection that was expected to assist in marketing and growth of the sector.