Tourism Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk has called on the tourism and aviation sectors to build and strengthen the broadest possible consensus on challenges faced by both sectors.
Opening the 43rd annual general assembly of the Airlines Association of Southern Africa (AASA) conference in Somerset West on Friday, he said the two sectors were linked and inter-dependent and faced the same challenges, which should be addressed together. These were, among others:
- Visas: E-visas and M-visas (visas on mobile phones) could boost tourism volumes and so job creation potential. Already 600m micro-chipped E-passports exist worldwide. By 2014, 55% of all passports would be E-passports with 80% expected by 2020. Already, only 63% of all passports issued worldwide in 2012 were traditional paper-based passports. - Airlift: The current Chicago Convention, which provides for bilateral air services agreements between countries, is limiting airlift but would take many years to be renegotiated. Meanwhile, countries need to find a way to liberalise air transport gradually to ensure more competitive airlift. Global fleets will double from 18 000 commercial aircraft to 36 000 aircraft in the next two decades, most of which will be based in the Asia-Pacific region. The centre of aviation is shifting to the East, while the corridor between the Middle East and Africa is growing significantly. - The pace of hyper-connectivity: Already the entire travel and tourism value chain depends on its seamless Internet and mobile interconnectivity, which brings with it opportunities but also risks and threats, such as more empowered consumers, real-time reputational risks associated with social media, disruptions of cloud-based economies, trust issues in data security and potential for cyber-terrorism.  - Sustainability: Aviation needs to move away from its current reliance on kerosene jet fuel to survive in the long-term. Airlines with modern, fuel-efficient fleets, supported by cutting edge airport and air navigation infrastructure, will become leaders in the emerging low-carbon economy. He said the solution lay in short-term innovative ways to curb emissions through infrastructural, operational and technological  improvements and carbon footprint offsets through market-based measures; while hedging against carbon pricing through the incremental ‘drop-in’ of second generation bio-fuels would likely become a game changer in the next 15 to 20 years.
The Minister said African tourism was growing at 4% annually, ahead of tourism in advanced economies and this would drive demand for aircraft on the continent in future. At present, a fifth of the people in emerging economies took a flight annually and this would increase on the back of a rising middle class to two-thirds of emerging market populations in future. “In a mere two years from now, we will be at the crossing point where inbound tourism to emerging market destinations will exceed that to the advanced economies.”