Tourism Minister, Marthinus van Schalkwyk, has warned about the dangers of cyber-terrorism in an age of increasing hyper-connectivity.
Opening the 6th annual E-Tourism Africa Summit at the Cape Town International Convention Centre yesterday, he said: “Just imagine what would happen when air traffic navigation systems are scrambled by cyber terrorists with thousands of planes in mid-air, which is something that now occupies our minds in a number of international forums. Similarly, our industry could suffer heavy losses should the Internet, air traffic booking systems or financial systems fail even just for a week or two in the face of determined cyber sabotage.”  He also cautioned against “massive other potential disruptions in the age of interdependence, supply chain globalisation and big data”. “These include potential disruptions of the cloud-based economy and trust issues in data security.”
The Minister said hyper-connectivity was already disrupting many current business models and only innovative businesses would remain competitive. “In this hyper-connected world, we have to work harder than ever to control content. Real-time reputational risks associated with the social media and Internet’s amplification of our every move are greater than ever before.” 
Van Schalkwyk said SA Tourism was one of the leading online destination marketing organisation in the world today. More than 14 000 trade organisations participated in its modular online programme, ‘SA Specialist’, between April and July this year. SAT also ran extensive campaigns on leading global media partner websites like National Geographic and CNN, while 32% more people used Expedia to book travel to South Africa between January and June this year, compared with the same period last year. 
He said South Africa was outperforming all its competitors in terms of tourism growth this year, thanks to a much more effective SAT marketing campaign that was applying new technology, a diversification of product and stronger focus on quality lifestyle products and convention/conference tourism. 
He believed the current weakening of the rand would only have a short-term impact on inbound tourism. “I’ve learned over the years that it would be a major mistake to rely on the currency when building South Africa as a tourist destination. We’ve always been a value-for-money destination and we will continue to market ourselves as such, but we have never been a cheap destination and we will never play in that category,” he said.