With less than 400 days in her current term of office, Minister of Tourism, Patricia de Lille,has in her own words, “hit the ground running” to familiarise herself with industry concerns and challenges.

And, through industry collaboration and consultation – including with SATSA and the Tourism Business Council South Africa (TBCSA) – to find solutions.

“There are many issues we need to tackle and act on and over the past few weeks I have engaged several stakeholders in the sector and everywhere there are the same concerns.

“We must confront and deal with these issues and do it fast because we all want to go back to pre-COVID visitor numbers and push those numbers even higher. I am looking for ideas and action.

“As the sector, you know best what the issues are and what and how we can grow tourism and jobs in this sector. I need your help,” De Lille said, addressing delegates at the SATSA conference held at the Durban ICC from May 6-7.

“Let’s run together,” she said. “Let’s speak with one clear voice, have one clear message on destination marketing, make South Africa safer for tourists and truly open our country for visitors with the e-visas and improving air access.”

She pointed out that the government’s role was not to manage from the top down but to rely on the industry it serves for guidance.

Noting that there would be no “holy cows” (untouchables) in the tourism sector going forward, De Lille said she had identified key priorities to unlock growth for the sector and make headway towards reaching 21 million tourists by 2030.

Meeting with Minister of Transport

One of the top four priorities is solving the backlog on the National Public Transport Regulator issuing operating licences for wheels operators. She said she had met with the Minister of Transport, Sindisiwe Chikunga, where they both agreed to work even harder to eradicate barriers and backlogs.

“The Department of Transport shared its challenges related to this work and stated that the challenges contributed to a backlog of 1 014 operating licences by June 2022,” said De Lille.

According to her, since July 2022, the NPTR has dedicated three days per week to deal with the backlog until it was cleared.

“I was briefed that SATSA has been closely involved in this work and the initial backlog of operating licences was cleared by the September 2022 deadline.

We must work together to resolve the matter of the tour operators who have not collected their licences. There is now a backlog of 418 current applications,” De Lille said.  

A quick win, said De Lille, was that the Department of Transport investigated and conducted a legal assessment of the possibility of implementing a moratorium/amnesty on law enforcement.

“The Minister (Chikunga) instructed provincial authorities to halt the harassment of tour operators and stop the impoundment of vehicles and arrests.”

De Lille added: “Finally, we must continue to reform and simplify the Standard Operating Procedure for tour operator licence applications.”

Assistance at SATSA stand

Operators with NPTR issues are invited to visit the SATSA stand at Africa’s Travel Indaba where they will be able to engage directly with a representative from the NPTR who will be on the stand for the duration of the show.

Following intervention by De Lille, at the request of SATSA, the NPTR has confirmed that it will be available to deal with any enquiries on the side lines of the show. 

Said David Frost, SATSA CEO: “The NPTR battle is one we have been fighting for many years with limited success. We are incredibly grateful to Minister de Lille for identifying the challenge as an obstacle to the growth of the tourism industry and acting decisively to rectify the issue. Her engagement with SATSA and swift intervention has resulted in wheels operators having direct access to the NPTR at Indaba to address any issues they may have.”

The SATSA stand is located on Row 2200 at Africa’s Travel Indaba.