Tourism can up economy

PROPERTY ECONOMIST: WHERE A WEAK RAND AND SLOW SARB ARE POSITIVES

SA Tourism wants to grow tourism numbers by five million in five years.

There were 1.2 billion international arrivals in 2016 – but less than 5% came to Africa, and 1% to SA. “Those figures can either scare you, or excite you. To a large extent, we’re still undiscovered,” says head of South African Tourism Sisa Ntshona.

Ntshona spoke at the Tourism Hotel Investment and Networking Conference, Thinc Africa in Cape Town, hosted by HVS.

“The African saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. We could say it takes the tourism industry to raise the economy, said Tim Smith, managing partner of HVS in South Africa.

“The opportunity offered by SA to domestic and international tourists is extraordinary. We just need to work together as an industry, with government’s assistance, to realise the opportunity for all.”

FNB’s property economist, John Loos, said SA has a weak rand and a slow-moving Reserve Bank going for it.

“I’ve given up trying to predict what the rand will do next, but realistically, we can expect a weak rand for some time. I wish more people would take advantage of it. It’s going to be there for a while, so we might as well use it.”

Loos said in tough times, people look for quality in places to live and visit.

That’s good news for Ntshona. “South Africa’s National Development Plan reckons tourism is a sector that can help take us out of this rut.”

He says SA’s looking for distributive growth that’s inclusive of the majority of its citizens, so it reduces the Gini coefficient – one of the highest in the world. “The more tourism grows, the more people will become economically active.”

To do so requires growing international and domestic tourism, says Ntshona, pointing out that when SA suffered a decline in tourism in 2014/2015, and international bookings were cancelled after the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, domestic tourism failed to step into the breach.

“Most strong tourism economies are built off the back of domestic tourism, but not here.” SA Tourism’s developed a “five in five” strategy, aiming to grow tourism numbers by five million in five years; four million would be international travellers, and one million domestic.

Various strategies are in place to do so, from starting to work with South African Development Community neighbours to package experiences in neighbouring countries, to encouraging everything from health-, medical- and sport tourism, to business tourism.

Seasonal tourism isn’t good enough if tourism is to help grow the economy.

The more tourism grows, the more people will become economically active