How SA competes for the UK market

Source: Tourism update, 29/10/2015

In a previous column (insert link), I argued that, while the Travel
and Tourism Competitiveness Index had some merit in assessing tangible
`hard` data, it is a very generic model by which to compare the
competitiveness of tourism destinations, particularly insofar as
establishing `uniqueness` and quality of experience.


The premise of the study done by the Division Tourism Management at
the University of Pretoria was therefore based on the premise that
destinations compete against relevant competitors, not generically
against all 141 economies of the world. Destinations also compete for
market segments (not for the entire travelling population) who
evaluate destinations based on their ability to provide similar
experiences, thus source markets are crucial in establishing
competitiveness. Furthermore, competitors can differ for different
source markets.


For these reasons, the approach taken by the research team in the
recent study on South Africa`s competitiveness was to determine how we
are performing against our competitors in terms of our source markets
and looking at what determines choice, rather than what is regarded as
important. The study covered a number of areas such as what we are
doing right (both public and private sectors) and what we are doing
wrong in our industry. This column represents only one part of that
study relating to tourist perceptions of South Africa as a tourist
destination. We investigated six source markets, three still emerging
(China, India and Brazil) and three traditional (the UK, the USA and
Germany) but here we only report on results from the UK market.


We began by asking South African tourism professionals what indicators
they believed determined potential tourists` choice in visiting South
Africa and these were grouped under six factors:
1. Uniqueness of the product offering
2. Safety and Security
3. Mobility and Infrastructure
4. Ease of Access
5. Public Perceptions
6. Value for Money
We had two main objectives, namely to determine the:
1. Influence of each indicator on the competitiveness of South Africa
as a tourist destination, and
2. Attractiveness of South Africa when compared with selected
competitors on each indicator
We asked respondents about their perceptions of how an indicator
influenced South Africa`s competitiveness and the attractiveness of
the destination in comparison to a selected competitor country. We
also asked the source market (long-haul tour operators who had to
fulfil certain criteria) who they believed South Africa`s main
competitors were.


Our two main competitors for the UK market were identified as
Australia and Kenya.


It is no surprise that our wildlife is one of our most precious assets
and it is part of what we believe makes us unique as a tourist
destination. The results for the respondents from the UK confirm that
our wildlife has an extremely positive influence on our
competitiveness. In rating ourselves against our main competitors in
terms of our wildlife offering, respondents from the UK believe that
we are clearly a much more attractive destination than Australia but
that Kenya and South Africa are equally attractive. So, how do we
distinguish ourselves from Kenya? We can`t, after all, change our
product to make it more unique - perhaps we can change some features,
the accommodation, the price, perhaps the way we package it! But, at
the end of the day, our competitors can also do that.


A tourist always has a choice and, more importantly, fundamental to
the definition of what a tourist is, is the experiential quality of
the purpose of travel. We cannot hope to understand the multiplicity
of experiences often desired by travellers in their trips. Many
studies have been done on what tourists want and researchers generally
agree that relaxation is a primary motivation for travel, and that
tourists are drawn to natural environments to seek some form of escape
from routine responsibilities and stress. So while we package our
nature products so that we can produce a romantic view of nature that
fulfils the need for relaxation, in John Tribe`s book on Philosophical
Issues in Tourism, it is suggested that we should go deeper and try to
understand what the actual motivation for relaxation is, and this is
described as a person`s need for physical and psychological
restoration. According to John Tribe, tourism, and particularly the
natural environment, could provide this restoration in four ways:
• An opportunity for reflection in an involuntary way – we don`t need
to direct our attention as we do in everyday life – our curiosity and
interest automatically kick in; this, he refers to as the element of
fascination.


• The opportunity to be away, both physically and psychologically, and
the being away to is every bit as important as the being away
from.


• Tourism and nature provide a connectedness to more than the
immediate environment; there is always the feeling that there is
something fascinating just around the corner…
• Compatibility with human needs and purposes – it brings us back to
what Alain de Botton in his book, The Art of Travel, refers to as "an
understanding of what life might be about, outside the constraints of
work and the struggle for survival."


So perhaps we should ask ourselves: Does our uniqueness lie in our
wildlife and natural environment or can we distinguish ourselves
through our interaction with tourists by providing physical and
psychological `restoration`? In Tribe`s book it is once again
beautifully expressed "What we can experience in tourism – the
transcendental, the sacred and the beautiful – those remarkable
encounters which nourish our everyday and spiritual lives in what has
been lost elsewhere in our contemporary world".


How we care for our tourists, our humanness and our interest, have the
capacity to restore, while our irritability, our overcharging, our
inefficiencies and sometimes our disrespect of one another, have the
capacity to deplete - perhaps making tourists seek restoration
elsewhere.


In the study we once again saw that overall safety and security,
especially crime, have a detrimental effect on our competitiveness,
and when we specifically look at tourist safety, we are perceived to
be performing worse than both Kenya and Australia. This is clearly an
area that causes huge loss in opportunities, because safety and
security concerns have been identified as one of the primary reasons
for tourists not visiting South Africa. Here we are clearly not
meeting one of the most powerful needs that humans have – the need for
safety – a freedom from threat and danger.


So much has already been said about this issue that I cannot add much
except to say that tourism is not an island. We need a national plan
under a unified, cohesive leadership, a leadership free from
controversy, to guide us through this minefield! As individuals, our
responsibility should be to practise ethical tourism in all its forms,
where we take responsibility for our own actions towards tourists and
with each small individual effort and outcry against crime and
corruption, eventually build a strong and responsibly sustainable
industry.


On the upside, our exchange rate may offer some opportunities where we
are perceived to be a value-for-money destination, far more so than
both our competitors. Our service quality has a positive influence on
our competitiveness and we are perceived to perform better than
Australia, but again, the same as Kenya. Our exchange rate could lead
to an increase in inbound tourism but we don`t know that for sure
because price is not the only driver of travel, our current visa and
unabridged birth certificate problems are having an overwhelmingly
negative effect, so as one group could increase, we are probably
losing another (families). It seems obvious that the decreasing value
of the rand will negatively affect outbound travel but at the same
time our domestic travel could increase, with traditional and emerging
markets spending more time and money in the country. We should also
not underestimate the value of our diaspora market (emigrants
returning home for a holiday while the exchange rate is so good for
them).


Last year we topped both Australia and Kenya and access to South
Africa was not particularly influential in our competitiveness. But of
course, this picture has changed dramatically with our new visa
regulations and the unabridged birth certificate requirement!


Ironically, if we go back to our current vision, one of our
underlying values to this vision is
`Service excellence – The entire industry, including the non-tourism
service providers such as retail and Home Affairs, shall continually
strive for excellence towards all our tourists.`


The results from the UK show that, as far as environmental management
is concerned we do not particularly stand out. We are viewed as
similar to both Kenya and Australia in this regard. Since we are
facing one of our biggest crises in our natural environment would this
not be an ideal opportunity for us, as tourism professionals, to go to
even greater lengths in supporting the efforts of our conservationists
in trying to protect this most valuable tourism asset