Spurs deal not hitting the target

It is disappointing to hear that Tourism SA will go ahead with their intention to spend nearly R1bn on English premier league club Tottenham Hotspur, even after all-round opposition to the deal.

There is no doubt that SA needs to market itself as a tourism destination. There is also no debate over the reach that the English game has in global terms.

The question is whether spending nearly a third of the marketing budget on one project is value for money. Our contention is that it is not.

Especially not in a country where tourism operators are struggling because of decisions that they have very little control over, such as unreliable energy and high prices of alternative sources.

To insist on the intended plan even after it has been dismissed before and has succeeded in uniting an otherwise polarised society such as ours, demonstrates an astounding sign of a tone deaf state-owned entity.

While it may be justified to dismiss sports federations that have rejected the plan and argued that better value can be had by sponsoring sporting teams or even individuals competing internationally as ignorant or naïve in their understanding how tourism works, the same cannot be said for the organised tourism business sector.

Yesterday, the CEO of the Tourism Business Council of SA (TBCSA) Tshifhiwa Tshivhengwa rejected the deal as an attempt to preach to the converted.

According to the TBCSA, the money would have been better spent marketing SA to destinations that have shown themselves to offer potential growth for tourism and not to the UK market because the majority of those visiting from Britain are already repeat visitors.

SA Tourism’s argument that the deal is for audiences outside of the UK who follow the league from all parts of the world is defeated by its own presentation that as part of the package would among other things be to give hospitality value and branding at the club’s ground.

The UK market does not need convincing that visiting SA is an attractive proposition. SA needs to market itself where the potential customers are and not indulge in vanity projects like the Spurs deal.