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Remove the barriers to growth: tourism`s call to SA President

Source: Tourism Update, 06/02/2019


Tourism Update spoke to a number of players in the industry
earlier this week, who indicated that forward bookings were not
looking healthy. This trend was corroborated by the TBCSA in the
presentation to Ramaphosa, following a meeting that the
organisation held with SA Tourism the previous week to look at
forward bookings. “They’re not encouraging,” said Blacky Komani,
Chairman of the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA),
“and SA Tourism’s presentation confirmed that as presented by
ForwardKeys â€` the global research company.”
China/India focus
“We are not pulling our weight on those countries,” said Tshifhiwa
Tshivhengwa, CEO of the TBCSA. “If you want to deal with China,
you need a China strategy. We need to be ready for this next big
market. If you look at the numbers, by 2030 China is probably
going to have around 300 million outbound tourists. Imagine if we
can get 1%, just 1% of those tourists. Same with India â€` just 1%.
Because those are the two growing markets.”
Infrastructure
With an aim of doubling tourist arrivals by 2030, Tshivhengwa says
this is achievable but infrastructure will need to be put in place
to manage the additional arrivals. “The doubling of tourist
arrivals means infrastructure improvement â€` we will need more
hotels, runways, expansion of airports, etc. We believe that the
capacity that we have now can carry us up to 2024, then we’ll
start to see some blockages. Investment needs to come up. And we
know that if we can create the demand, hotel investors are going
to come in, car-rental companies are going to buy more cars, tour
operators will buy more buses. The more tourists we get, the more
jobs we create, then when we hit the stumbling block we will need
more investment to be able to achieve the bigger growth.”
Vehicle permit issues
Vehicle permit issues are being dealt with by the TBCSA together
with the Department of Transport, “and there’s good progress
there. We know where the bottlenecks are,” said Komani.
This comes against the backdrop of a meeting held between the
Director Generals of Tourism and Transport on December 20, 2018,
with private sector represented by TBCSA and the Southern African
Tourism Services Association (Satsa), where the backlog and delay
of processing applications was tabled, along with requirements for
B-BBEE certification and reference letters, and the challenges
faced with route authority.
“A plan of action has been developed to address the backlog of
applications,” says Hannelie du Toit, Chief Operating Officer of
Satsa, “to meet with the NPTR Board for a review of requirements
and criteria, and to gain deeper understanding from the industry
as to the challenges they face in obtaining Operating Licences”.
This forward movement is being driven by the TBCSA, with the
support of Satsa.
Now and looking ahead
He said the government acknowledged that one of the failures of
the National Development Plan was that the private sector was
never included as part of that process. Thus, the Public Private
Sector Growth Initiative (PPGI) was kickstarted last year to bring
the private sector into the picture.
The way forward following this pivotal meeting will be guided by
the PPGI process. “We have been working hard from the TBCSA’s
side, to make sure tourism is top of mind when the government
starts to talk about jobs,” said Tshivhengwa. “We are sending the
right messages to the right people, and we believe that we are
shaking this whole thing of unnecessary or prohibitive
regulations. Soon, we are going to be winning this battle to move
on.”
“There’s serious commitment from the President, as we were talking
to the ministers offline,” said Komani, “but this is a matter that
he is dealing with, because he understands the negative impact
these visa regulations [and other barriers] have on our growth.
People complain that nothing is being done, but I can tell you one
thing, and I’ve been in tourism for more than 30 years, the
government is taking this sector seriously.”
Mr President â€` you want to grow jobs, you want to grow the
economy…the tourism industry is ready, and these are the things
that we can do, provided you do these things for us. Remove these
barriers. - Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa


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