Guest House Association of South Africa

24/10/2026

THE BRIEF | Saturday 24 October

On Tuesday we wrote that a collective agreement for the restaurant and catering trade had been extended to employers who never signed it, and that it binds them from Monday 26 October. That is now two days away. Here is what has changed since Tuesday, and the one question to settle this weekend.

WHAT HAS CHANGED

Nothing has been reported as stopped. FEDHASA's cut off for businesses joining its urgent court application was 17:00 on Tuesday 20 October. As of this morning, no outcome of that application appears on FEDHASA's own news pages or anywhere else we could find. So plan on the agreement applying from Monday until you hear otherwise in writing.

It has been stopped once before. The Labour Court granted FEDHASA an interdict against an earlier extension of the same council's agreement on 2 March 2021. That is a precedent, not a promise.

THE DETAIL WE DID NOT HAVE ON TUESDAY

From LabourNet's reading of Government Gazette 55542 of 16 October 2026, published 20 October 2026.

The extension binds until 31 August 2028. It replaces the agreement that expired on 31 August 2026.

Where it applies. Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal. Most of North West, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. In Gauteng, only the magisterial districts of Heidelberg, Nigel, Vereeniging, Vanderbijlpark, Oberholzer, Meyerton and Carletonville.

Read that last line twice. Johannesburg, Sandton, Pretoria and Centurion are not on it. NEASA's note on the same council's scope says employers outside the listed areas fall under the separate Pretoria council or the Sectoral Determination for the Hospitality Sector.

Two duties nobody mentioned on Tuesday. Register with the Council within 30 days. Display a copy of the agreement at the workplace and hand it to an employee who asks for it. LabourNet does not say when those 30 days start running, so ask.

The provident fund is now named. Compulsory membership of the Momentum Funds At Work Umbrella Provident Fund. 5 percent from the employee, 5 percent from the employer.

THE WAGE FIGURES DO NOT AGREE

FEDHASA, on 19 October, puts the scale at R30,23 to R57,23 an hour.

LabourNet, on 20 October, puts it at R32,92 to R57,65 an hour from 1 June 2026, rising to R35,22 to R61,69 from 1 June 2027.

We are not choosing between them. If you employ anyone who cooks or serves, get the rate in writing from the Council or from your own labour adviser before you change a single payslip.

WHY IT MATTERS TO A GUEST HOUSE

The exclusion covers the hotel industry, and only where the food side is run by the hotel itself and forms an integral part of its operation. Guest houses and B&Bs are named nowhere, not in the summaries of the gazette and not in FEDHASA's statements.

So if you serve breakfast, run a dinner service or take function bookings, you do not yet know whether you are in or out. That is the whole question for our members, and no Facebook post can answer it for your establishment.

Two things before Monday. Check whether your magisterial district is on the list above. Then put the scope question to the Council in writing and keep the reply. FEDHASA members can start at fedhasa.co.za/contact-us/

Sources
https://www.labournet.com/fast-food-main-agreement-extended-to-non-parties/
https://fedhasa.co.za/urgent-we-need-your-support-deadline-5pm-tuesday-20-october-2026/

The GHASA team

Free State | Gauteng | North West | Limpopo | Mpumalanga

23/10/2026

THE BRIEF | Friday 23 October

SARS closes the 2026 filing season for individuals today. If you are not a provisional taxpayer and you have not filed, today is the last day. The penalty for a late return runs from R250 to R16 000 a month, and it repeats every month until the return is in.

Most guest house owners are not on today's date. Here is how to tell whether you are.

THE DATES

From the SARS filing season page.

Auto assessments, 1 July to 12 July 2026.
Individuals who are not provisional taxpayers, 13 July to 23 October 2026. That is today.
Provisional taxpayers, 13 July 2026 to 22 January 2027.
Trusts, 19 September 2026 to 22 January 2027.

SARS does not publish a cut off time for today. Do not leave it until late tonight.

WHICH DEADLINE IS YOURS

SARS quotes the Income Tax Act definition. A provisional taxpayer includes any "natural person who derives income, other than remuneration or an allowance or advance as mentioned in section 8(1)". The exclusion SARS lists for a natural person applies only to a person who earns no business income.

So if you trade the guest house in your own name, that is business income and you are a provisional taxpayer. Your return is due 22 January 2027, not today.

If the guest house sits in a company or a trust and your own income is a salary and nothing else, today is the date for your personal return. The trust's own return is 22 January 2027.

If you are not certain which you are, do not settle it from a Facebook post. Open eFiling and look at what SARS has you registered as, or phone your accountant this morning.

THE PENALTY, IF TODAY IS YOUR DATE

From the SARS media release of 22 October 2026. A late personal income tax return may draw a monthly administrative penalty of between R250 and R16 000, depending on taxable income, until the return is filed. Unpaid tax carries penalties and interest on top of that.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

If today is not your deadline, you have 91 days, and this is the morning to stop worrying about it.

If it is your deadline, the cost of missing it is not a single fine. It is a monthly one, charged again every month the return stays outstanding.

And look at the date SARS has given provisional taxpayers and trusts. 22 January 2027 falls in the week your January guests are still arriving and your December paperwork is not yet done. Put that return in the diary now, for a quiet day in the first half of November, rather than leaving it to land in the middle of your season.

ALSO IN THE DIARY

Wednesday 4 November is a public holiday throughout the country, declared for the local government elections by Proclamation Notice 346 of 2026 in Government Gazette No. 55352 of 8 September 2026. Staff who ordinarily work a Wednesday and who work that day must be paid at least double the wage they would ordinarily have had for the day, or that wage plus what they earn for the hours worked if that comes to more. That is section 18(2)(b) of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act. Section 18 does not reach anyone who works fewer than 24 hours a month for you. Settle your roster before the week arrives.

Sources.
https://www.sars.gov.za/types-of-tax/personal-income-tax/filing-season/
https://www.sars.gov.za/media-release/sars-urges-taxpayers-to-file-as-2026-filing-season-enters-final-days/

The GHASA team

Diarise the Filing Season dates and keep an eye on the Tax Season webpage.

22/10/2026

THE BRIEF | Thursday 22 October

The general fuel levy comes down on Wednesday 4 November. Diesel by R3,00 a litre. Petrol by R1,50. That is 13 days from today. It halves on 1 December and ends on 5 January 2027.

On Monday we wrote that the fuel levy question would be settled at the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement at 14:00 on Wednesday. It was. This is what was decided.

THE DATES AND THE AMOUNTS

Announced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana on 21 October 2026.

4 November to 1 December 2026. Diesel levy cut by R3,00 a litre, petrol levy cut by R1,50 a litre.

After 1 December 2026 to 5 January 2027. Diesel R1,50, petrol R1,00.

Godongwana on the second stage: "The diesel levy will be reduced by R1.50 per litre and the petrol levy by R1 per litre."

The cost is R10 billion in forgone revenue, funded by returning R10 billion already transferred to the Central Energy Fund to the National Revenue Fund.

This is the general fuel levy. The Road Accident Fund levy is not touched.

WHAT IT DOES NOT DO

It does not mean a cheaper pump price on 4 November.

November was already heading up. Two readings of the Central Energy Fund mid month data disagree, because they were taken a day apart. On the 15 October snapshot, BusinessTech put petrol 95 up 228 cents a litre. On the 16 October snapshot, Stuff put it up 184 cents. Either way, the expected increase on petrol is larger than the R1,50 coming off the levy.

The final figure comes from the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources a few days before 4 November. Do not plan off either estimate.

Where you are now. Petrol 95 is R30,25 inland and R29,38 at the coast. Diesel 0,05 percent wholesale is R31,95 inland and 0,005 percent is R33,29.

THE DIESEL POINT THAT MATTERS MORE

The petrol pump price is set by government and every station must charge it. Diesel is not. Government publishes a monthly diesel reference price and it is a guideline. Wholesalers and stations set their own.

So the R3,00 coming off the diesel levy does not have to reach your pump, and nothing obliges a station to pass all of it on. Watch your own supplier's price, not the headline.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO A GUEST HOUSE OWNER

If you run a generator, a transfer vehicle or a bakkie doing the laundry and grocery run, your diesel cost drops for four weeks, and half of that drop goes away on 1 December, the day your season starts.

If you buy diesel in bulk, the cheap window is 4 November to 1 December. Filling a tank on 3 November costs you R3 a litre more than filling it on the 4th.

Petrol is the smaller story for your own costs and the bigger one for your enquiries. Your domestic guests drive to you, and on these estimates petrol stays above R30 a litre through December with R1,00 of relief left on it.

The date for the diary is 5 January 2027. The levy goes back up while your January guests are still on the road.

THE PATTERN, FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH

This is not the first round this year. A R3 a litre cut ran on both fuels from 1 April to 5 May 2026. It was extended to 2 June, with diesel taken to zero from 6 May. It was then halved, and the levy returned to R4,10 for petrol and R3,93 for diesel on 1 July.

We are not telling you this one will be extended. We are telling you the last one was, twice, and still ended.

SOURCES

https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/finance-minister-announces-fuel-levy-relief
https://www.timeslive.co.za/news/business/2026-10-21-mtbps-2026-godongwana-provides-fuel-price-relief-again-but-at-what-cost/
https://www.citizen.co.za/business/godongwana-reduces-fuel-levy-until-january-heres-by-how-much/
https://businesstech.co.za/news/energy/879899/here-is-the-expected-petrol-price-for-november-9/
https://iol.co.za/business/economy/2026-03-27-diesel-price-explained-how-its-set-and-why-stations-can-hike-early/

The GHASA team

Consumers will breathe a sigh of relief following Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement of a reduction in the general fuel levy.

21/10/2026

THE BRIEF | Wednesday 21 October

SANParks conservation fees change on Sunday 1 November 2026. That is 11 days from today. Your international guests pay about 15 percent more at the gate. Your South African guests pay about 4 percent more.

THE NUMBERS

From SANParks' own fee schedule for 1 November 2026 to 31 October 2027, set against the rates still on its park pages this morning.

Kruger National Park, adult per day. South African citizens and residents R134 to R140. SADC nationals R275 to R296. International R602 to R692.

Cape Point, adult per day. South African R110 to R115. SADC R225 to R242. International R515 to R592.

Boulders, adult per day. South African R55 to R57. SADC R110 to R118. International R245 to R282.

The new rates at three more. Addo Elephant, R115 South African, R242 SADC, R565 international. Kgalagadi, R134, R283, R662. West Coast outside flower season, R85, R141, R166.

Adults are 12 and older. Children are 2 to 11 and pay about half.

Now work it out as a family. Two adults and two children at Kruger on the international rate is R1 804 a day today. From 1 November it is R2 074. Over four days that is R8 296 in gate fees before they have paid you for a bed.

The same family on the South African rate goes from R402 a day to R420.

WHAT THE PARK WEBSITE STILL SAYS

This matters more than the figures. The SANParks Kruger and Table Mountain rate pages still showed the 2025/26 rates this morning. A guest pricing a trip today reads the old number. The fee schedule itself carries the line "Subject to change without prior notice".

THE WILD CARD, AND WHAT WE CANNOT TELL YOU

Wild Card holders pay no conservation fees. The SANParks pricing page says the current prices apply "from 1 November 2025 until 31 October 2026". SANParks cluster, individual R895, couple R1 450, family R1 735. All Parks cluster, R930, R1 525, R1 870.

At R895 against the new South African adult rate of R140, the individual SANParks card pays for itself in just over six days inside a park.

The 2026/27 card prices are not published. We are not telling you they go up. We are telling you the current price has 10 days left on it.

WHY THIS MATTERS TO YOU

If you sell a package, a transfer or a guided day trip with park entry inside it, your costing on every international booking after 1 November is short by about 15 percent of the gate fee. Check what you have already quoted for December.

If you hand guests a printed activities sheet or a rate card with gate prices on it, every international figure on it is wrong from 1 November. Reprint it, or take the numbers off and write "payable at the gate".

Do not let the 15 percent headline reach your domestic enquiries. For a South African family at Kruger it is R18 a day.

And watch a stay that straddles the date. A guest arriving Friday 30 October and leaving Tuesday 3 November pays two different gate rates in one visit.

The first public holiday under the new fees is Wednesday 4 November, the local government election day, declared under section 2A of the Public Holidays Act of 1994.

Also today, the Medium Term Budget Policy Statement is tabled at 14:00. We covered it on 14 October.

SOURCES

https://www.sanparks.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/daily_conservation_fees_2026_27.pdf
https://www.sanparks.org/parks/kruger/rates-entry-fees
https://www.sanparks.org/parks/table-mountain/rates-entry-fees
https://www.sanparks.org/rewards/wild-card/types-pricing
https://www.sanews.gov.za/south-africa/lge-president-ramaphosa-declares-4-november-public-holiday

The GHASA team

20/10/2026

20/10/2026

Airbnb puts a gold badge on some listings and not on others. It is called a Guest Favourite.

Nobody pays for it. You cannot buy it and no agency can get it for you. Airbnb works it out from what guests say and from how the place is run.

Here is what they look at, in their own words. "Overall star ratings, feedback in guest reviews, and communications between guests and hosts on the platform." They count the category ratings too, including check in and cleanliness. Then they look at reliability. Host cancellation rate. Review removal rate.

Read that list again. Clean rooms. Someone at the door. Answering people. Not cancelling on a family who booked six months ago.

That is your list. That is the work you have done since the day you opened, and the lock box places down the road cannot copy it.

Now the part that stings.

Airbnb will not even consider a listing until it has, in their words, "a minimum of 5 reviews in the past 4 years, with at least 1 of those in the past 2 years."

Five.

Plenty of guest houses that have been busy for twenty years do not have five reviews on Airbnb. Not because the guests were unhappy. Because nobody ever asked them.

They told you at the door. They told their friends. For years that was the whole system and it worked. It does not reach the screen a stranger is looking at tonight.

The badge is not decoration either. Airbnb says "A new filter allows guests to search for only Guest favorites." A guest switches that on and every listing without the badge comes off the page. Not further down the list. Off it.

Airbnb added more to this in November last year. The top 10 percent of listings that qualify now carry a gold trophy and a label saying top 1, 5 or 10 percent. Those need at least five reviews in the past two years.

Nobody sent a letter to say the marking had started.

Three things, all free, all this week.

Ask every guest as they leave. A sentence at the door while they are still holding their bags does more than any email you will ever send.

Go back through your last year of guests and ask the ones you got on with.

Reply to the reviews you already have, the good ones included.

If this year has felt like fewer enquiries, more empty nights out of season, and people asking for a discount before they ask about the room, this is one of the quiet reasons. It is not your beds and it is not your breakfast. You are good at those.

The booking sites are not the enemy. They send real guests and they take their commission for it. This is about earning more from the channels you already pay commission on.

Our free check shows you where your listings actually stand. Fifteen questions, all multiple choice, under a minute. Nothing to look up and no sales call. Open to any guest house or B and B in South Africa, member or not.

https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/bjBnLN?Lead_Source=Facebook

The GHASA team

20/10/2026

Booking.com keeps a reply score on your property. It is a percentage, it updates every day, and most owners have never looked at it.

Here is what it measures, in Booking.com's own words. "Your reply score reflects how promptly you respond to guests' messages."

The sum is simple. Of the guest messages you received in the last 30 days, how many did you answer inside 24 hours. That is the score. It appears once you have had your first ten guest messages, and if fewer than ten arrived in the month, Booking.com works it out on your last ten instead. Messages that needed no reply are left out of the sum.

You will find it in the Extranet. Open the Home tab and look under Your scores. It also sits in your Inbox, under Reservation messages.

Go and look at yours this week. Most owners have no idea it is there.

Now the part worth sitting with.

Booking.com says this about partners who score well. "Partners with high reply scores tend to have lower cancellation rates and better overall review scores."

Answering people quickly does not only win you the one booking. It holds the booking after it is made, and it comes back later in what guests write about you.

And this is the one item on the whole list that is actually about hospitality.

Photo resolution is not hospitality. Bed sizes on a form are not hospitality. Answering a worried daughter who is trying to work out whether your place will suit her mother is exactly what you have been good at for twenty years. On the telephone nobody ever beat you at this.

The trouble is where the question arrives now. Twenty past nine at night, in an app, while you are turning the kitchen around. No bell rings. Nothing marks it urgent. You find it at six the next morning and the person booked somewhere else at half past ten.

That is not carelessness. It is a 24 hour clock running on a message nobody told you was being timed.

The good part is that this one is mostly a settings problem, and it is free.

Turn message notifications on in the Booking.com partner app on your phone, and in Airbnb, and check they are not silenced after nine at night.

Write three short replies and keep them somewhere you can reach in a hurry. One for parking and directions. One for breakfast times and dietary questions. One for whether you can take a family of four. Most of what arrives is one of those three.

Let whoever is on duty answer the easy ones. Two honest lines at nine at night from your manager or your daughter count the same as a careful paragraph from you the next morning, and they arrive while the person is still choosing.

Reply to your reviews too, the kind ones and the unkind ones. Booking.com's own advice is to answer "in a warm and friendly manner", to thank the guest "whether it's positive or negative", and to make the reply personal "so it doesn't feel like you're replying with templates". You have that voice already.

If this year has felt thinner than last year, with more midweek nights going past empty out of season and more people asking what you can do on the price, this is one of the cheapest places to start looking.

The booking sites are not the enemy here. They send you real guests and they charge real commission for it. This is about getting more back from money you are already paying them.

We built a free check so you can see where your listings stand right now. Fifteen questions, all multiple choice, under a minute. Nothing to look up and no report to wait for.

https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/bjBnLN?Lead_Source=Facebook

Open to any guest house or B and B in South Africa, member or not.

The GHASA team

20/10/2026

A guest looking for a place near you does not scroll through every listing. They tick a few boxes first.

Free parking. Wifi. A room that sleeps a family. Somewhere the dog can come. A bathroom they can get into without climbing a step.

Every tick makes the list shorter. And here is the part nobody explains. If your listing does not have that box ticked, you are not on the shorter list. You are not further down it. You are not on it.

You probably have a big safe parking area behind the gate. Most guest houses do. If the box is not ticked on Booking.com or Airbnb, the guest who filtered for parking never saw your name at all.

Airbnb says it plainly on its own help pages for hosts. "Many guests filter search results by amenities, so adding everything you offer may help you increase bookings."

Booking.com tells its partners the same thing. "Select the correct facilities so your property is more likely to appear when a future guest searches with multiple filters."

Google says businesses with complete and accurate information are more likely to show up in local search results, and it asks you for "other details such as parking or Wi-Fi availability".

So this is not a photography problem and it is not a pricing problem. It happens before either of those. It is a tick box problem.

Three that guest house owners miss most often.

Parking. You have it. It is very often just not ticked.

Step free access. If you have a ground floor room with no step at the door, that is worth real money to an older couple planning a trip. Airbnb has a whole set of filters for it, right down to a step free shower and a grab rail. Most owners have never opened that part of the form.

Languages. Airbnb lets a guest filter by the language the host speaks. If you and your staff speak more than English, make sure every one of those is on your listing.

None of this costs a cent. It is one evening at the kitchen table with a cup of tea and your listings open in front of you.

You built this place when the diary filled itself. Clean rooms, a proper breakfast, and guests who told their friends. That still works on every person who walks through your door. The trouble is the step before that, and nobody sent a letter to say the step existed.

The booking sites are not the enemy here. They send you real guests and they charge real commission for it. This is about getting more back from money you are already paying them.

We built a free check so you can see where your listings stand right now. Fifteen questions, all multiple choice, under a minute. Nothing to look up and no report to wait for.

https://survey.zohopublic.com/zs/bjBnLN?Lead_Source=Facebook

Open to any guest house or B and B in South Africa, member or not.

The GHASA team

20/10/2026

FEDHASA is coordinating an urgent legal application regarding the extension of the Bargaining Council for the Fast Food, Restaurant, Catering and Allied Trades Main Agreement to non-parties, due to take effect on 26 October 2026.

For restaurants, cafés, caterers, and other hospitality businesses, the agreement carries a range of financial and operational obligations, including prescribed minimum wage rates, employer contributions to a provident fund, funeral scheme contributions, a uniform cleaning allowance, a minimum annual bonus, and monthly council levies.

We believe the legal requirements for this extension warrant proper scrutiny, and we are pursuing that through the appropriate channels.

A successful application will require broad industry participation. If your business is affected, please register your interest via our online form before 5pm today.

We will continue to keep you informed every step of the way.

https://forms.zohopublic.com/singergroup1231/form/Helpusprotectasustainablerestaurantsector/formperma/n8LKNUvxESEMe5P1r5FJt78H_Hqpw3KbwXPu1lg8mow

20/10/2026

THE BRIEF | Tuesday 20 October

A collective agreement that sets wages, a provident fund and monthly levies for the restaurant and catering trade was gazetted on Friday. It binds employers who never signed it from Monday 26 October. That is six days from today. FEDHASA is going to court to stop it, and its cut-off for businesses that want to join that application is 17:00 this afternoon.

THE DATES

The extension to non-parties was published in Government Gazette No. 55542 on 16 October 2026. It takes effect on Monday 26 October 2026. Both dates come from FEDHASA, the hospitality industry body.

FEDHASA is bringing an urgent interdict against it. Its words: complete the online form "by no later than 17:00 on Tuesday, 20 October 2026". That is today.

WHAT THE AGREEMENT REQUIRES

FEDHASA lists these obligations.

Minimum wages of R30,23 to R57,23 an hour, depending on category.
A 5 percent employer contribution to the Council's provident fund.
Contributions to a funeral scheme.
A uniform cleaning allowance of R17,50 a week.
A minimum annual bonus of two weeks' salary.
Council levies of R16 per employee per month, which FEDHASA describes as shared, and R25 per month per establishment paid by the employer.

The bottom of that wage scale, R30,23 an hour, is exactly the national minimum wage that took effect on 1 March 2026. So the entry rate is not where the cost is. It sits in the categories above it, and in the provident fund, the bonus, the allowance and the levies.

DOES IT REACH A GUEST HOUSE? WE CANNOT TELL YOU, AND HERE IS WHY

FEDHASA's notice names "restaurants, cafés, caterers and other affected hospitality businesses across South Africa". It does not mention guest houses, B&Bs or lodges.

We could not obtain the scope clause of the 2026 agreement itself. We are not going to guess at it.

What we can tell you is where the line sat the last time this same agreement was extended to non-parties, in January 2021. FEDHASA said then that it "will not apply to the commercial accommodation sector unless their catering facility(s) have been outsourced to a third independent party". The scope published at that time also excluded the casino and hotel industries where the catering is run by the hotel itself as part of its own operation, and excluded Gauteng and Pretoria, which have their own councils.

That was 2021. We are not telling you it still reads that way in 2026.

WHY IT MATTERS TO YOU

Three questions decide whether this is your problem.

Do you run a restaurant or coffee shop the public can walk into, as opposed to a breakfast room for your own guests? Is your kitchen run by an outside caterer rather than by you and your own staff? Are you outside Gauteng and Pretoria?

On the 2021 wording, an owner who cooks breakfast for their own guests and nobody else sat outside this. An owner who has contracted the kitchen out, or who runs a restaurant open to the public, did not.

Do not settle this from a Facebook post. If either of those describes you, phone your labour consultant or payroll bureau today and ask one question. Does Gazette 55542 of 16 October 2026 bind me from 26 October. Six days is enough time to find out and not enough time to fix it afterwards.

The Council's own site is bcfood.co.za.

Source: https://fedhasa.co.za/urgent-we-need-your-support-deadline-5pm-tuesday-20-october-2026/

The GHASA team

The Bargaining Council for the Food Retail, Restaurant, Catering & Allied Trades previously known as the Bargaining Council for the Tearoom, Restaurant & Catering Trade, Pretoria has been registered since September 1941.