Paul Randall owns and runs South Coast Holidays, which looks after short-term rental accommodation (STRA) for their owners - including 30-35 in the Kiama area.

With the area having one of the highest STRA density rates in NSW, there is the view that forcing owners to rent them out longer term could ease the housing crisis in Kiama.

But Mr Randall said that was a simple answer to a complicated problem.

"Short-term rentals are getting bullied by governments and we're getting blame for the lack of properties in permanent rentals," Mr Randall said.

"There are other issues that need to be looked at by governments and councils rather than the easy blame and the easy fix being to blame holiday rentals. Less than one per cent of dwellings in Australia are holiday rentals."

Mr Randall said if the owners were forced to turn their properties into long-term rentals, it was doubtful people in Kiama could afford the rent.

With owners using the short-term income to help pay off the mortgages, turning it into a long-term rental, the rent would rise substantially.

"I tell you now, if you turn the properties in Kiama into permanent rentals what percentage of the population would be able to afford to stay there?"

"To pay $800, $900 $1000 a week rent - it's unaffordable. Most of people wouldn't be able to pay that much."

He also stated that a number of owners will stay in their own properties over the weekend, which would be another impediment to any long-term rental plan.

"If they were forced to go down the permanent rental path that dwelling would sit there empty," Mr Randall said.

"It wouldn't turn into a permanent rental property and they wouldn't sell it. It would sit there empty - the only occasion it wouldn't be empty was when the owners came down themselves six or eight times a year and stayed at their own property."

While the common conception with STRA is that it used for holiday accommodation, Mr Randall said around 40 per cent of his bookings were not travel-related.

With a shortage of hotel accommodation and a heavy schedule of events in Kiama, Mr Randall said STRAs were used by performers and others in setting up the festivals.

There were also other uses for STRAs, he said.

"I've got three properties at the moment where the guests are staying in them through an insurance company," he said.

"Something's happened to their property - fire or whatever. There's domestic violence victims, travelling workers.

"They were building that Woolworths up in Kiama. We had three properties booked out for a period of three months all for workers who came to work on that. Where else would they stay?"