Mahlalela wants to boost tourism to South Africa

THE Tourism Investment Forum Africa (Tifa) conference drew to a close at the Cape Town International Convention Centre on Thursday this week.

The two-day event saw hundreds of delegates investigating ways to grow the tourism sector on the continent.

Tourism Deputy Minister Fish Mahlalela, while opening the conference on Wednesday, promised to combat crime in his sector to ensure that tourism in the country flourished.

In collaboration with World Travel Market Africa and Brand South Africa, Tifa aims to foster business connections and engagement among stakeholders and decision-makers within the trade and investment aspects of the tourism sector.

The forum is a pan-african platform that aims to facilitate investment into the tourism sector, especially intra-african investment.

Speaking to Independent Media on the sidelines of the conference, Mahlalela conceded that crime was a glaring challenge to tourism investment in the country, but said that the government had developed a tourism strategy to combat crime.

“When tourists decide to choose a destination to tour, there is one question they ask themselves … and if they don’t get a positive answer, they desist from touring. One of them is safety.

“If tourists come to the conclusion that it’s not safe to visit the country, then they change their minds and the sector loses,” Mahlalela said.

He added that the government had developed a tourism safety strategy, creating a tourism safety forum. It was a combination of government, civil society and the private sector together with the SAPS making sure they created a safer environment for tourists.

“We need to make tourists feel safer coming to the country … so we have developed tourism safety monitors which we have deployed at our various tourism attractions throughout the nine provinces, including SA National Parks.”

He said they were also looking to invest in tourism infrastructure.

The deputy minister said government was partnering with some organisations of which Tifa was one to improve tourism.

“We are participating in all the international trade shows, taking all our key SMES and exposing them to the international market.

“Last February, we had Meetings Africa which was part of a strategy to draw as many businesses into South Africa as possible.

“We will be having a Travel Indaba in Durban which is an effort to make sure that we expose businesses of South Africa to the international world. This helps assist many local businesses to be able to join and be party to selling their products to the international market,” Mahlalela said.

He said tourism investment was growing after the destruction that

Covid-19 caused to the local tourism economy.

“You might know there have been a lot of accommodation facilities that have been suffering since Covid … so we chose the private sector, not only South African, but also internationally to have confidence in what South Africa is able to offer.”

He said that South Africa needed to improve access to the country.

“We have currently finalised the air lifting strategy, so that we make sure it’s easy for flights to come into South Africa. More importantly, (we must) make sure that there is some element of affordability because if it’s not affordable it won’t be easy for people to come to South Africa,” the deputy minister said.