A blueprint for the rejuvenation of the South African economy - Tourism sector perspective

The Inclusive Society Institute in collaboration with the Tourism Business Council of South Africa convened a tourism sectoral dialogue on Tuesday, 21 June 2022. The dialogue forms part of the Institute’s research into the development of a blueprint for the rejuvenation of the South African economy. The dialogue was attended by a wide range of organisations representing various divisions of tourism in the country, including, inter alia, the hospitality the industry, the airline industry, travel agents, destination marketing agencies and the hotels, resort and game lodge establishments.

Issues raised included amongst others:

• Need to minimise policy diversion at the political level

• The need for policy certainty

• Whilst planning was adequate, implementation of policy programmes was lacking

• Lack of sufficient communication and guidance from government, for example, crime and safety warnings, and health pandemics

• Technology not being sufficiently leveraged

• Slow certification in the aviation industry

• Monopolistic tendencies

• More needs to be done to improve the country’s brand reputation

• Improving the visa regime

The sector was of the view that they themselves could improve with regard to innovation, the introduction of new initiatives and improved performance. Given more agreement than disagreement between the private and public sectors they were also of the view that the industry would be better served by focussing on areas in which there was agreement as opposed to being distracted by the areas of disagreement.