Tourism Minister Patricia de Lille believes South Africa can accelerate arrivals in the second half of the year to surpass the 10.7 million projected by economic analytics company Oxford Economics.
Speaking at a Tourism Economic Impact briefingin Sandton last week, De Lille urged industry associations and the private sector to work with the Department of Tourism and South African Tourism to address the sector’s “silo mentality”.
“I find, similar to relationships between government departments, there is a bit of a silo mentality that hinders the tourism value chain,” she said. “All the different sectors within the value chain are doing their own thing. We should be connecting the highest levels within tourism to SMMEs, community-based organisations and townships. We will then be able to truly diversify our tourism offering.”
De Lille called for a deliberate and coordinated approach to destination marketing, pointing out the private sector’s pivotal role in buoying SA Tourism’s efforts to promote the country.
Government contributes at least R1 billion (€58m) towards tourism marketing every year and the private sector R30 billion (€1.5 billion), she pointed out.
“We are dealing with the fragmentation and will be implementing a new global marketing campaign across all markets,” she said.
In its 2024/25 Annual Performance Plan, South African Tourism highlights the global brand campaign as one of its major programmes; encompassing eight localised marketing campaigns in Europe, the Americas, Asia and Australasia.
De Lille acknowledged the private sector’s exceptional work in helping the sector to emerge from the ashes of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“I want to thank all of you in this sector for the work that you have done. The tourism sector is thriving but there is always room for improvement,” she said, highlighting programmes to address impediments such as visa red tape, inadequate air access, safety and security.
De Lille voiced confidence that these coordinated efforts could help the country surpass the arrivals target projected by Oxford Economics.
“I want to challenge the public and private sectors to exceed the 10.7 million arrivals – I think that is possible.”
Statistics South Africa recorded 4.44 million arrivals in the first half of 2024 (89% of the 5.095 million arrivals recorded in the first half of pre-COVID 2019). The country therefore needs a dramatic surge in arrivals to exceed 2019’s full-year figure of 10.23 million and surpass the 10.7 million target.
Access to finance a struggle for SMMEs
De Lille and South African Township and Village Tourism National Coordinator Thato Mothapeng bemoaned the ongoing struggles faced by SMMEs trying to enter the tourism market and contribute towards the sector’s growth.
While development programmes such as the Tourism Equity Fund (TEF) and the Tourism Transformation Fund have made some progress in funding SMMEs, De Lille acknowledged that application approvals were still “painfully slow”. She promised to review the service level agreement with the Small Enterprise Finance Agency – the implementing agent of the R1.2 billion (€60.3 million) TEF – to accelerate application processing.
Mothapeng called for the establishment of a sector advisory committee to bridge the gap between SMMEs and funding institutions.
“If businesses that apply and invest heavily in products cannot access finance, they cannot operate and cannot find their space within the market. We have to talk about open access to finance for the townships and the tourism space.”
One of SA Tourism's stated priorities is to stimulate the township tourism sector and attract more business events to these areas, to drive government's aim of fostering inclusive economic growth.
