TKZN’s incubation programme: helping transform the province’s tourism sector
TOURISM KwaZulu-Natal’s skills development incubation programme for small-medium and micro enterprises (SMMEs) has guided and shaped dozens of emerging business es to success.
Their development has not only generated a growing and sustained interest in their various businesses, but it has also brought in more tourists to the province, which is TKZN’s mandate.
And the programme has contributed to the transformation of KZN’s tourism sector.
The three-year incubator programme aims to bring the emerging previously disadvantaged operator into mainstream tourism.
The programme has been running for several years and offers entrepreneurs who are selected for it three years of invaluable and practical support.
Up-and-coming B&B and guest house owners, tour operators and travel agents and owners of tourism attractions, have all been skilled and developed down the years.
Apart from skills development and training – and an assessment of what management skills need to be addressed – there is a big focus on market support and access to markets.
“An enhancement process is currently underway which will see us expand the focus of our intervention to include business tourism, thus providing targeted assistance to black professional conference organisers (PCOs), exhibition organisers, destination management companies (DMCs) and incentive organisers. We will partner with the National Department of Tourism, the provincial Department of Economic Development, Tourism and Environmental Affairs, district municipalities and tourism trade to ensure our programme is impactful and that the pace of transformation of our local tourism sector is heightened,” said Phindile Makwakwa, TKZN’s chief operating officer.
TKZN also offers an advisory service on how to start a tourism business and runs market-related workshops.
To qualify for the incubator programme, a business has to have been operating for about two years and the owner has to be a South African, with all the other legal requirements in place. And tour operators have to have itineraries that sell KZN.
Once selected and trained, the next step is to expose the business to the right markets by enabling the owners to take part in trade shows where they will meet business delegates. The initial platforms are domestic trade shows.
“They have got to understand how the markets work, how to reach them and have the right package offering for those markets. Taking part in a trade show is one of the platforms to get to those markets This year we aim to assist the businesses to better align their service offerings to their market segmentation to ensure growth,” Makwakwa explained.
Business owners in the first year of the incubation programme are initially “rovers” at trade shows, and, as they do not occupy an exhibition stand, they have the opportunity to move around and make contacts.
They then progress to sharing a stand with another exhibitor, proceed to having their own exhibition stand at domestic, national shows and regional shows (such as the SADC countries, where some 200 million residents represent big market opportunities) and, in the final year, take part in international trade shows where they tap into the National Department of Tourism market access programme, which is aligned to South African Tourism.
TKZN continues to support the blackowned business owners even when their three-year-programme has ended, particularly on business-to-business linkages.
“If we are going to accelerate transformation in the tourism sector, we have to work as a team. Ultimately everyone is a winner as our sector will have a wider range of players and diversified offerings, which in turn stimulate tourism growth, leading to greater job creation,” concluded Makwakwa.