All hands on deck to grow KZN’s tourism
The local tourism sector can play a huge role in job creation and boosting the province’s economy if everyone comes on board.
The Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs (EDTEA) head of department Nhlakanipho Nkontwana stressed this during an exclusive interview with Capital Newspapers at Thursday’s Tourism Month launch held at Midmar Dam.
Tourism KwaZulu-Natal, in partnership with EDTEA and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, officially launched tourism month under the theme ‘Rethink tourism’.
Emerging from two catastrophic years of Covid-19, coupled by last year’s July unrest and April’s devastating floods, EDTEA has set out with guns blazing to rebuild KwaZulu-Natal, mobilising everyone interested in investing in the province.
“We need to work together to grow the economy of the province in all the eleven districts. There should be no one who should have to travel to look for jobs. We must create jobs where people are.
“The government has already adopted a townships and rural economy strategy to ensure that we inject our investment in townships and rural areas. Creating economic activity in those areas will reduce crime too.
“We want people to work together with us as we implement this strategy to enable people to earn a living, especially young people.”
Speaking on the impact of the devastating floods in April, hot on the heels of two catastrophic years of Covid-19, Nkontwana said the province suffered a huge loss to infrastructure, which further derailed the tourism industry.
“Access roads to different places were damaged and some are yet to be fixed. The province is working together, chaired by the disaster management centre under Cogta MEC Sihle Zikalala, to ensure that repairs are completed to the infrastructure damaged by the floods. Our first action was making sure that we promote tourism using business events and also focusing on domestic tourism, encouraging people to come to [local] establishments.”
As the industry is showing signs of being well on the road to recovery, Nkontwana said local tourists currently remain the backbone of the industry. He said they are using business events to target international visitors to the province.
“We use these events to [get] people to come and see what we can offer. Looking at the products that we have to offer, we are a destination province. Promoting investment and reindustralisation is key to growing the tourism sector.
He named the recent Metair Investment automotive manufacturing plant in KwaDukuza and the Sappi expansion as two major boosts to the local economy.
“Not long ago, President Cyril Ramaphosa was in KwaZulu-Natal for the Metair Investment manufacturing plant launch in KwaDukuza, which injected R9.3 billion into the local economy. We have the other expansion at Sappi, which injected R7.7 billion. We are doing all of this to ensure that we promote trade, investment and tourism so that people can come and trade here, but at the same time spend time in our hotels, to boost the occupancy rate and improve our economy,” he said.
Speaking on the challenges with infrastructure at Ezemvelo, Nkontwana admitted the infrastructure had not been maintained; however, the department is committed to fixing this and has resolved to focus its attention on eco-tourism.
“[We want to] explore ways to leverage on the biodiversity economy to grow our industry and ensure it is inclusive and that communities are able to benefit from the industry.
“We are working together with the national department of tourism because some establishments are funded by them. We want to ensure these establishments are of a high quality so people can flock to these areas with their friends and families and enjoy themselves,” he said.
Nkontwana said EDTEA is also committed to restoring the faith of investors and businesses in the province, following last July’s civil unrest.
“As a province, there are companies that we are trying to resuscitate. We also have a number
of companies that we have lost as they migrated to other provinces.
“I think the people of KwaZulu-Natal have learned that burning our infrastructure is not going to help us. Now we have to work together to rebuild.
“As government, we are reaching out to everybody, including the business forum. We are saying, let’s work together and make sure that whatever we do, benefits this province.
“The business sector has committed itself to this vision. Not long ago, we met with the top 20 CEOs in this province, where the MEC and premier led the delegation engaging with these big businesses, who all assured us that they are staying and will continue to invest in the province.
“I know many big businesses, like Massmart, lost a number of outlets, but they never retrenched a single employee and have chosen to reinvest in the province. There are also others that have made a commitment to investing because [they see that] KZN is ready for business and this is where they want to do business.”
He confirmed the province, led by a security cluster, has put plans together to ensure what happened last July does not happen again.
“One of the issues raised by businesses is that of security. There’s a plan that has been presented by the provincial commission of police to ensure security and stability. We are working with what we call the KZN Economic Council, comprising government, big and small businesses, trade unions and civil society.
“We have tabled this plan to ensure that we work together to protect businesses. We also have to protect jobs because if people are unemployed, we are likely to have problems. We want to see everyone working and businesses thriving, that is our goal.”