The South African Department of Tourism will host a public lecture on September 18, to engage and share ideas with industry stakeholders and the academic fraternity with a view to enhancing strategies, planning, programmes and policies within the tourism sector.

Hosted in collaboration with the Walter Sisulu University (WSU) Mthatha Campus, the Eastern Cape Department of Economic Development, Environment and Tourism, and its marketing agency the Eastern Cape Parks and Tourism Agency, the lecture will be hosted at WSU in the Eastern Cape, and will be live-broadcasted by Tourism Update.

The theme of the lecture, in line with that of UNWTO 2018 World Tourism Day (September 27), is ‘Tourism and the Digital Transformation’, and will be explored in a series of presentations by a highly acclaimed panel of industry experts, including the SA Minister of Tourism, Derek Hanekom.

The lecture aims to achieve a number of objectives, including:

• Raising awareness of the impact of technology and digital transformation for tourism enterprises and the tourism sector
• Highlighting the technological and digital trends impacting and guiding the future of tourism
• Stimulating government, industry and civil society co-operation around the issues of digital transformation and the sharing economy
• Sharing best practices and case studies on digital transformation for tourism enterprises
• Encouraging research by the academic fraternity to inform plans, programmes, policy and strategies in relation to digital transformation

Readers are invited to watch the live broadcast on Tuesday, September 18 starting at 09:15 (GMT+2) and finishing at 13:00 (GMT+2),

REGISTER HERE to watch the lecture live.

The programme and list of speakers and panellists will be shared later this week.